Hey everybody, it's Anne.

Street protests are continuing across the country.

Police departments are enacting changes.

Confederate statues are coming down.

What's next in the fight for black equality?

This hour will take a hard look at how racism infects not only the police, but the entire criminal justice system.

Keep listening.

It's to the best of our knowledge. I'm Anne Strange Champs.

American streets are ringing with calls to reform or defund the police, with demands for real equal justice. But bad cops are just the tip of the iceberg.

Take a big step back.

Take a big step back.

And look what we've done.

Because more often than not, if you're African American and you get a Take a big step back. And look what we've done.

Because more often than not, if you're African-American and you get arrested, you don't go home.

This is Michelle Alexander.

When a young person is caught with some marijuana in their pocket, or a little cocaine, or whatever it is that young people find themselves experimenting with, young people of all colors, if a young person in the hood is caught with that, their life is over.

Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination that we associate with the Jim Crow era are suddenly legal again.

Employment discrimination is legal. Housing discrimination against you is legal. Under federal law, you're deemed ineligible for food stamps for the rest of your life if you've been convicted of a drug felony. In a growing number of states, you're expected to pay back the costs of your imprisonment.

And paying back all these fees, fines, and court costs pay back the costs of your imprisonment, and paying back all these

fees, fines, and court costs may be a condition of your probation or parole.

We went from a prison population in the 1970s of about 300,000 to now one of well over 2 million.

Our system of mass incarceration operates more like a system of racial and social control than a system of crime prevention and control.

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