Throughout the semester, we discussed many different issues currently prevalent in the United States, particularly those related to racial discrimination. A specific issue that I have developed interest and research in is that of institutionalized racism, particularly in the form of mass incarceration, and what types of effects mass incarceration has on a community. In this article I will briefly examine a number of issues surrounding the mass incarceration of Black and Latino males, the development of a racial subcaste due to rising incarceration rates, the involvement of women and children, and the roles they obtain in the era of mass incarceration, and the economic importance that the prison system has due to its development. Michelle Alexander, in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, examines the development of institutionalized racism after the drug wars and how it created what Alexander calls a “new era of Jim Crow,” or a racial caste in the United States. Alexander describes this subcaste as “a lower caste of individuals who are permanently excluded by law and custom from mainstream society” (Alexander, 32). This is not only due to mass incarceration rates among Black men, but extends to the effects these branded criminals face beyond prison walls. By checking the well-known box on any question, it has become legal for almost any institution or company to discriminate against a marked criminal. Alexander notes that: “Once labeled criminal, the old forms of discrimination – employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunities, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion… . ... middle of paper ...... Jane Crow: Reproductive Rights in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” American Journal Of Public Health 103.1 (2013): 17-21. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 April 2013.Rios, Victor M. Punish: Policing the Lives of Black and Latin Boys New York: New York University Press, 2011. Print.Simmons, Michaela “Voices from Outside: Mass Incarceration and the Women Left Behind. ” International Journal Of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences 6.4 (2011): 71-83. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 April. 2013.Thompson, Heather Ann. “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History” Journal of American History 97.3 (2010): 703-734 Academic Search Web. Vogel, Erin. “Roosevelt Students Campaign Against Armed Police in Chicago Schools.” Red Eye [Chicago, IL] February 28, 2013. Print.