Dan Berger reviews documentary on racial criminalization and the rise of mass incarceration

ava duvernay documentary 13th

IAS faculty member Dan Berger reviews "13th," Ava DuVernay's documentary on racial criminalization and the rise of mass incarceration. "The prison system is racist and violent," Berger writes, "but in ways that constantly evolve. … Overall, the film is too inattentive to the historical ebb and flow of racial criminalization, and it misses some of the most damning components of punishment." The review appeared in the African American Intellectual History Society blog and was republished in both Muster, the blog of the Journal of the Civil War Era, and Public Books.