This roundtable discussion will bring together a cross section of scholars whose previous work reflects new directions in carceral studies that increasingly highlight the epidemic of mass incarceration that disproportionately affects Black women. The United States houses nearly 25% of the worlds prisoners and one-third of the world’s incarcerated women and the majority of these women are black. This roundtable discussion examines the overincarceration of Black women. The incarceration rates of Black women are longer than their white and Latinx counterparts and they receive longer sentences as well. This roundtable will explore the public and scholarly debates on mass incarceration related to Black women and highlight reform solutions and the path forward for new policies impacting this critically important issue.

This panel explores mass incarceration as the problem of the 21st century and engages the scholarship of the panelists while also drawing and expanding upon previous works by thought leaders such as Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow (The New Press, 2012), Heather Ann Thompson’s Blood in the Water (Pantheon, 2016), Khalil Muhammad’s The Condemnation of Blackness (Harvard University Press, 2010), Monique Morris's Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (The New Press, 2016), and Andrea Ritchie's Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color (August 2017). This roundtable will illustrate how the past is linked to the present and how justice for incarcerated Black women begins with serious discourse and action that seeks to transform the modern criminal justice system.