Jobs for felons
Prison is an easy solution to the problem of crime and doesn’t require much thought. Our politicians like prisons too: it fits in very easy to the predominate culture of sound-bite politics. Prison is an expensive, incredibly punitive sanction that should legitimately be reserved for those who pose a threat to society. Its overuse drains resources from other essential areas of government.
State law requires felons to complete their entire sentence, including probation or parole, and satisfy all applicable financial obligations before they can resume voting. The individuals must obtain a certificate noting their voting rights have been restored. States have also used felon-disenfranchisement laws as pretext for voter (registration) roll purges that also disenfranchise non-felons. A particularly notorious and consequential example of Voter role purge in the 2000 Florida election was the Florida 2000 Database Technologies (DBT) purge of 82,389 mostly African-American, more than 90% of whom should have been eligible to vote. States with the highest percentage of African-Americans frequently have the harshest disenfranchisement laws and those with the lowest black populations find the least need to bar felons from the polls. At the least restrictive end of the spectrum are Maine and Vermont which, respectively, have .04 and .03 percent African-American populations (compared to the national average of 12.1%) and happen to be the only two states that allow convicted felons to vote from prison.
Ex-felons should have their civil rights restored automatically following their unconditional discharge from the criminal justice system. The statutory denial of rights to ex-felons after the completion of their sentence infringes upon their citizenship and the collective citizenship of the communities to which they eventually return. Ex-felons are therefore not equal, and without such equality they do not share in the “common citizenship” enjoyed by their counterparts who have not been convicted of a felony. Ironically, the very process of serving one’s sentence is in effect an obligation of citizenship, and one that should be rewarded with the restoration of rights.
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