The Age of Mass Incarceration
More from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s October cover story
A Call for Hope in the Age of Mass Incarceration
The four-letter word helped African Americans surpass challenges in the past, and it should still be present in the face of today’s struggles.
A Family Weathers a Life Sentence
Odell Newton was 16 when he killed a cab driver. Four decades later, his family is still hoping for his release.
The Other Half of the Moynihan Report
A little-known memorandum from Daniel Patrick Moynihan offered President Johnson policy prescriptions to address the problems his report had identified.
The Moynihan Report: An Annotated Edition
A historian unpacks The Negro Family: The Case for National Action on its 50th anniversary.
Memo to Labor Secretary W. Willard Wirtz
In an April 20, 1964 memorandum, Daniel Patrick Moynihan made the case for more aggressive action on behalf of African Americans.
The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration
American politicians are now eager to disown a failed criminal-justice system that’s left the U.S. with the largest incarcerated population in the world. But they’ve failed to reckon with history. Fifty years after Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report “The Negro Family” tragically helped create this system, it’s time to reclaim his original intent.
Mass Incarceration, Visualized
In this animated interview, the sociologist Bruce Western explains the current inevitability of prison for certain demographics of young black men.