"The system of mass incarceration as we know it today was born out of slavery. After the Emancipation Proclamation, land owners turned to convict leasing camps to secure labor. This unsurprisingly led to higher and higher rates of incarceration among black and brown people, and a new racialized form of social control was created.

Today, Alaska Natives and Native Americans face disproportionate incarceration rates. Historical trauma, generational poverty and increased police presence in impoverished neighborhoods are some of the contributing factors. In 2015 in Alaska, the recidivism rate for Alaska Natives was 74%. Meaning that 74% of those released from prison would eventually return to the prison system. In 2022 in Washington State more than 45% of Native American prisoners return to prison within three years of their release.

As author Michelle Alexander so eloquently put it, those marked with a felony are “subjected to legalized discrimination in employment, housing, education, public benefits and jury service... We have not ended racial caste in America. We have merely redesigned it.”