Prison 'reform' about budgets, not justice

Is it true that whites, or at least a majority of whites in positions of power, will support prison "reform" only as long as state budgets push for releasing nonviolent inmates?

Michelle Alexander, hinting that today's judicial system approaches a new Jim Crow, forcefully argues yes to that.

Telling me nothing new, but a stat to which many white Americans simply will not listen, she says:

African-Americans are far more likely to get prison sentences for drug offenses than white offenders, even though studies have consistently shown that they are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites.

Indeed.

The first time a state or federal government runs an undercover drug operation in a high-rise office tower is the day I start believing otherwise.