by Ron Nixon

About the author: Ron Nixon is a general assignment reporter for the political journal Southern Exposure.

Shortly after the Million Man March of 1995, findings of the Sentencing Project (a research and advocacy organization on criminal justice policy in Washington, D.C.) showed that the number of African American men incarcerated in U.S. prisons had increased 31 percent, to one in three, during the five-year period from 1989 to 1994. The report was immediately greeted with great public outcry and national comment from politicians, media pundits, and civil rights groups. Lost in the dialogue was that the number of Hispanic inmates had also increased during the same period.

When there is a discussion of race and the legal system, the terms are almost entirely framed in black and white. Part of the problem, says Marc Mauer...