The First Civil Right

The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America is a 2014 non-fiction book by the Princeton University professor Naomi Murakawa. The book discusses U.S. incarceration rates, racial inequality in the U.S. prison system, and the role of liberal politicians (specifically Democrats) in contributing to inequalities there.

Murakawa's approach specifically "discounts intentions, recognizing that racial power is not necessarily exerted by will." Instead the book investigates differing forms of racism and how they have functionally influenced the U.S. prison system.

According to Murakawa, Democratic efforts to professionalize the U.S. justice system in response to racial bias effectively contributed to that bias. Examples discussed include the Boggs Act of 1952 and the Narcotic Control Act of 1956 which both created mandatory sentencing that set a precedent of inequality during the War on Drugs. More recently, Bill Clinton's 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill, which was heavily supported by Joe Biden, expanded the Federal death penalty and minimum sentencing, which has been disproportionately applied to minorities. Minimum sentencing and drug laws have also significantly increased incarceration rates for nonviolent offenders.

According to Murakawa, the term "The first civil right" was first used in the Truman administration to refer to the right to be protected from violence, specifically Black protection from White supremacist violence, but the term was later popularized by Nixon to implicitly mean protection of White people from Black people.

For the book, Murakawa was awarded the Michael Harrington Book Award by the New Political Science section of the APSA in 2015.

Murakawa is an associate professor at the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University.