Rights of felons are cut short

Written by Chris Yurko, Staff Writer

There is an estimated five million people living in America today that have committed a felony. When a citizen is convicted of a felony, he or she is stripped of many basic rights that are allowed to citizens who have not committed a felony. This is known as disfranchisement, or to deprive one of a franchise, privilege or right.

When the United States disfranchises those who have been convicted of a felony they are essentially casting out that person from their basic citizenship. Many argue that those who cannot uphold certain standards and laws should not be allowed to vote or choose the leaders of our country.

However, approximately one third of these felons have already completed their sentence and are ex-offenders. By not allowing this group of people the right to vote we encourage their further involvement in things that may be illegal. By making them an outcast in society and putting them into a cycle in which getting a job is nearly impossible, we only fuel any thoughts of continuing criminal activity. Not to mention the horrible state of our prison system which is laughingly called rehabilitation by the government. Prison only groups violent people together in a small confined place where they are treated badly and spend nearly all their time in a tiny stone box. To call it rehabilitation is a mockery of the word.

Another mistake that needs to be addressed is how the government does not look at what the convicted felon has even done. There are different kinds and levels of felonies. Violent offenders for example shouldn’t be able to vote ever again because they tried to take another person’s life. Offenders who have not committed a violent crime should still be allowed to vote.

Disfranchisement also strongly affects the Black and Latino communities in America because more of these males are convicted of felonies every year than white males. This affects a large portion of minority voting communities by not allowing many offenders to gain their voting rights back and essentially negates many years of civil rights voting advancements.

Many argue that a citizen should uphold a certain standard if that citizen wants to keep their rights, however this is missing the basic point and saying that one can not ever change or improve. The fact that if somebody makes a mistake in their life they should no longer have any choice in who leads them or make decisions that affect their country is absurd, and it destroys one of the core principles that this country was founded upon.

While states or the federal government have legitimate reasons to impose upon felons penalties of confinement and reparations to the victims of their crimes, there is no logical reasoning to disenfranchise the large number of felons that are in the United States. Disenfranchisement is not a reasonable step in rehabilitating felons and helping them to acclimate back into society.

Pamela S. Karlan, the Kenneth and Harle Montogomery Professor of Public Interest Law at Stanford University said in a 2004 Law Review titled “Convictions and Doubts: Retribution, Representation, and the Debate over Felon Disenfranchisement”, “If felon disenfranchisement is to be justified, it must be justified as a permissible form of punishment… Neither rehabilitation nor deterrence plays any plausible role at all in justifying the disenfranchisement of former offenders. It is impossible to see how lifetime or extended post-incarnation disenfranchisement rehabilitates anyone; indeed, the very message of such exclusion is to suggest ex-offenders are beyond redemption.”

In essence what Ms. Karlan is saying here is that by not allowing ex offenders to vote we are completely abandoning the idea that we can rehabilitate and fix the way people live their life. We are giving up on an important issue and cannot disguise it. We need to call it for what it really is, punishment, not rehab.

Those convicted of a non violent felony should be allowed to vote after they have completed their sentences and paid their debt to society. Felons already have enough problems to go through trying to get a job and function effectively and positively in society without being held to a below-citizen level of social standing. The United States needs to change the way it handles felons, which strips them of their basic rights.