Democracy depends on the free exchange of ideas. Help sustain it with a tax-deductible donation today.
Michael Javen Fortner is assistant professor and academic director of Urban Studies at the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York. He is the author of Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment.
Mass incarceration is so politicized that we can't talk about its origins.
A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975. Registered 501(c)(3) organization. Learn more about our mission
We publish leading scholars, activists, and writers on the most pressing political debates of our time.
But as a small nonprofit, we rely on reader support. Will you help support bold thinking about a more just world?
That’s what sociologist Alondra Nelson says of Boston Review. Independent and nonprofit, we believe in the power of collective reasoning and imagination to create a more just world.
That’s why there are no paywalls on our website, but we can’t do it without the support of our readers. Will you make a tax-deductible contribution today?