Question

How did Reconstruction lay the foundation for mass incarceration and further social inequities?

Answer 1

Mass incarceration was a direct result of the frenzy that was produced in the state by the end of Slavery and made a different class of incarcerated people.

Explanation:

The incarcerated population is too big in US to not be accounted for by some systematic failure.

They amount to the cheapest labor that  US government has access to but is also responsible for a lot of state expenditure due to such high conviction rates.

The seeds for this were sown in the time of the Reconstruction when the laws put in place were able to put more and more black people behind bars and make a different form of state sanctioned slavery out of it.