The debate over the causes of mass incarceration, and its class and
racial roots, is crucial not only because it gives us an insight into
the current rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, but also because it
forces us to look more deeply into the persistence of racism throughout
American life. At the same time, despite the revelations of the depth of
racism in the US and, indeed, across much of the “western” world, rooted
in slavery and colonialism brought to light by the Black Lives Matter
movement, there has been a growing tendency on the social democratic
left to demote racism as a factor in mass incarceration and the criminal
justice system. Rather than looking at incarceration itself, here I will
examine the race and class origins and practices of policing in the US
that inevitably underlie trends in incarceration and criminal justice in
general.

My point of departure is a series of articles written by Cedric Johnson
in New Politics and Catalyst, but could just as well address the works
of several others writing on this subject in the last couple of years
that contest the idea that race and racism is at the heart of mass
incarceration.1

https://spectrejournal.com/the-roots-of-racist-policing/