For such dealing with criminals, white or black, the South had no machinery, no adequate jails or reformatories; its police system was arranged to deal with blacks alone, and tacitly assumed that every white man was ipso facto a member of that police.
Du Bois critiques the Southern justice system, highlighting its lack of proper infrastructure for rehabilitation and its inherent racial bias, treating all white men as de facto law enforcers against Black people.
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