This critical analysis traces the unbroken lineage of racism from slavery to modern incarceration, drawing on scholars like Angela Davis and Jill Lepore to reveal how policing and prisons function as tools of racial control. By connecting historical and contemporary systems, it argues that reform alone cannot dismantle these deeply embedded structures—only abolition can. Editors, here’s a writer who blends rigorous scholarship with urgent, transformative insight.

Racism has been woven into the foundations of policing and incarceration in the United States since their inception. In the works of Angela Davis and Jill Lepore, and contemporary findings of The sentencing project, the persistent presence of structural racism is made clear. These readings not only trace the historical roots of the carceral state but also illuminate how those patterns continue in our present systems. Davis explores how prisons evolved directly from institutions that controlled enslaved people, and in parallel, Lepore offers insight into additional and ongoing cultural myths surrounding American policing. Together, they paint a picture of cyclical systems that preserve social hierarchies under the guise of public safety and justice.

Davis (2003) draws direct lines between slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration, asserting that modern prisons are a continuation of earlier racialized controls. She emphasizes that the prison-industrial complex profits from racial disparities and exploits the labor and bodies of marginalized populations, particularly Black and brown people. Lepore (2020), on the other hand, traces the development of policing in both the U.S. and Britain, challenging mainstream narratives that police forces were created primarily for noble or neutral civic reasons. Instead, she argues that policing emerged as a response to demands for controlling the poor, the colonized, and the racially “othered.” Her exploration of these parallel timelines reveals how historical myths have been used to mask systemic oppression.

Both Davis and Lepore reference early and contemporary examples of carceral injustice to highlight these enduring patterns. Davis points to the convict leasing systems in the post-Reconstruction South, where Black people were arrested en masse for minor infractions and then forced into labor. Lepore highlights the role of police in suppressing labor movements, civil rights protests, and other moments of social unrest. What struck me most in both texts is how these patterns are not historical relics—they repeat in the form of over-policing, militarized police forces, and disproportionate incarceration rates. The persistence of these structures underscores the difficulty of meaningful reform.

The Sentencing Project’s report (2022) brings the conversation into our current context by showing how these legacies are alive in today’s justice system. It reveals staggering disparities: Black Americans are five times more likely to be incarcerated than white Americans, and Latino individuals nearly twice as likely. The report also documents how youth of color are disproportionately impacted by the school-to-prison pipeline and how criminal records continue to hinder economic mobility long after a sentence is served. These statistics aren’t accidents; they are the result of deliberate policy choices and structural biases that have gone largely unaddressed.

Given the historical and contemporary evidence, the question of whether racism can be eliminated from these systems is difficult. It seems unlikely that reform alone can uproot something so deeply embedded. As Davis argues, abolition may be the only viable path—not simply dismantling prisons or defunding police, but reimagining what safety, justice, and accountability could look like outside these racist systems. Racism operates not just in individual prejudices, but in the very logic and infrastructure of our institutions. Without fully reckoning with that truth, any attempt at change risks replicating the same injustices under a different name.

Reading these timelines across Davis, Lepore, and the Sentencing Project stirred a mix of anger, surprise, and even a strange sense of validation. I’ve been thinking about how elites often say it takes three generations for a company to fail unless it’s structured to withstand time—just like our current systems, which were built to preserve power through structural violence and racism. It’s painful to realize that when I add today’s context to those timelines, the injustices haven’t just continued—they’ve arguably worsened. With Trump elected again, it feels like everything we study has intensified: racism, attacks on trans youth, the silencing of protest, and the erosion of truth. He makes the Bushes and Reagan look like Muppet Babies by comparison. Many in my community carry deep wounds from systemic hate, and these readings helped me see how that violence is filtered, normalized, and recycled through institutions. I don’t know yet how to break these cycles, but I know now that recognizing them is the first step—and no one can unsee them and prevail.

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References

Davis, A. Y. (2003). Are prisons obsolete? Seven Stories Press.

Lepore, J. (2020). The invention of the police. The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-of-the-police

The Sentencing Project. (2022). Report to the United Nations on racial disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system.
https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/