So I think most people would describe mass incarceration as a systemic issue, not one that any individual president or administration is wholly responsible for.

So I think most people would describe mass incarceration as a systemic issue, not one that any individual president or administration is wholly responsible for. The President is not an absolute monarch who can impose their will all throughout the US government... That being said, it's just plain easy to find actual incidences where US policy was explicitly racist in it's intent and effect. https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich... > "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."