The Banning Of Felons In Today's Society

Prisons where essentially build to accommodate a number of prisoners but over the years it has reach over capacity. Today in the United States there are approximately 193,468 federal inmates that consisting of the Bureau of Prisons Custody, private managed facilities and other facilities. The inmates ages range from 18- 65 with the median age being in their late 30’s. This number is counting both male and female population with male being 93.3% of inmates and females being 6.7%. The number of inmates has steadily increase since 1980 with only having approximately less than 50,000 but today the number has gone more up. Drug offenses are the highest number for inmate’s imprisonment, the next highest offense would be weapons, explosives and arson; immigration and miscellaneous fall next in lines. The number for the other offenses such as robbery, extortion, fraud, bribery, burglary, larceny, property offenses and other offenses are lower. Overcrowding prison has become problematic as the prison population continue to increase leading to proper care and attention for prisoners.

In the article, "Felons and the Right to Vote," claims of fact, value, and policy are used. The author's first claim sets the subject for the rest of the piece, "Denying the vote to ex-offenders is antidemocratic, and undermines the nation's commitment to rehabilitating people who have paid their debt to society." This is a claim of value, stating that not allowing ex-offenders to vote is against the philosophy of our democratic government and dismisses the time they have served for their crimes. This is a claim of value because the evidence used, later on, argues that the current actions of the government relating to the suffrage of ex-felons, is morally wrong. The speaker challenges the audience to think about right vs. wrong, good vs. bad.

Those that are against such a disenfranchisement, however, have arguments of their own. The first such argument observes that not all felons are evil or immoral to the same degree; in many cases, those that are arrested are average citizens and do not deserve such harsh treatment. According to statistics of the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) of the Federal Bureau of Investigations of 2007 approximately 14,380,370 arrests were made nationwide, or 4,832.5 of every 100,000 people. Arrests and convictions are not made solely on murderers, molesters, and rapists; common nonviolent crimes, such as shoplifting or drug possession, are included in these statistics as well. Sanford McLaughlin, a Mississippi resident, was disenfranchised for life because he was found guilty of passing a bad check for $150 (“Losing” 5). The law automatically assumes that McLaughlin is a criminal; in reality, he could be an upstanding citizen that made one poor decision that affected his entire life. Unfortunately, disenfranchisement laws do not look at crime itself, just at the occurrence of such an incident. There is no regard for felon’s criminal history, or lack thereof, or the type of crime he committed. Another factor regarding the lack of wisdom is the age of

Nationally, every 7 minutes, another person enters prison. And every 14 minutes, someone returns to the streets, beaten down and, more often than not, having suffered a great amount of violence during his or her incarceration. Professionals will tell you that incarceration really does very little to stop crime, but we go on spending billions of dollars in order to lock up more and more people. We have become the country with the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world. (National Criminal Justice Commission)

The vast societal effects from mass incarceration have caused an increasingly alienated population to form in the U.S., which can be broadly classified in the dual areas of lasting effects and impacts to the family unit. First, the lasting effects of high incarceration rates are that they impact the rights of the convict, particularly African Americans. For example, noted civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander posits that the long term effects of mass incarceration operate to deny black Americans the future right to volte, the ability to obtain public benefits, the possibility to sit on juries, and ultimately the opportunity to secure gainful employment (Steiker, 2011), Moreover, professor Alexander argues that this mass incarceration together with the prior Jim Crow laws and the past practice of slaery in the U.S. operate to ensure that black Americans remain s subordinate class of citizens defined primarily by their race (Steiker, 2011).

The first problem that can be solved with giving felons their rights back is giving them a way back out of trouble ,and away to be a modeled citizen. For example, in this article Vikki Hankins a convicted felonies tells of her quest to get her rights back. She has tried multiple times with no positive outcome. Her dream is to become a lawyer but because of her record she can’t take the bar exam (Penaloza 1). This here leads to some individuals going back to life they know better such as crime. Since they can no longer progress at a scholarly level into a professional level people tend to settle for less or even reform to crime(Penaloza 1).

Felon disenfranchisement is the loss of the right to vote for people who have committed felonies. When researching deeper into felon disenfranchisement, there is an underlying racial factor that consistently comes up. Some say disenfranchisement of felons is racially oppressive and a threat to democracy, while some argue that it’s functional and that race has no relevance. To start this paper I will give a brief background on felon disenfranchisement in relation to race. I will examine and analyze those who believe that “yes,” disenfranchisement of felons is heavily rooted in racial persecution. I will then examine and analyze those who say “no”, felon disenfranchisement is necessary and has no racial impact. After copious amounts of research, I have come to agree with the “yes” side, because their facts are more persuasive and their use of history is in depth, and as a whole this side delivered a well rounded argument.

The votes of felons are also relevant enough that if they were permitted to engage in democracy, they could change political outcomes. While disenfranchised felons only make up a little over 2% of the voting age population, their votes have been found to have enough influence to affect elections. Since those convicted of felonies are likely to be of a minority race or poor, it is likely felon disenfranchisement laws take away votes from the Democratic party and Independent votes. People of color make up roughly 60 percent of the prison population in the U.S. and make up larger proportions of the Democratic party than they do Republican or Independent (Kerby, 2012). Nearly 90% of the Republican party is white, 70% of Independent parties are

Back in 1974 three individual ex-felons, disenfranchised even after their sentences and paroles were completed, came to the Supreme Court believing that their fourteenth amendment right to equal protection of the law was violated by three different California county officials and the Secretary of State who denied them voting registration due to their ex-felon status. When the case was brought forth to the Supreme Court, the defendants, as in the three officials and the Secretary of State, acquiesced and decided henceforth that they would register ex-felons who have completed their sentence and paroles. But the Supreme Court case was not obsolete because the case persisted to be on behalf of all disenfranchised ex-felons in the state of California who were under similar situations.

This article focused its searchlight on felon disenfranchisement by gluing it eco-social theory in order to elucidate how approximately 13% of African American men are denied voting right by virtue of a felony conviction. It delve into how felon disenfranchisement laws contribute to racial health disparities in the United States. Purtle, Jonathan (2013) identified two potential pathways that facilitates the viability of the felon disenfranchisement laws that stand more disadvantageous to African Americans; these pathways include: (a) inability to change inequitable public policies that differentially allocated resources for health, and (b) inability to reintegrate into society by voting which add heavily to allostatic load. Purtle, Jonathan (2013) built on universal human rights that are codified by international and regional human rights agreements which United States also ratified and adopted; the Universal human rights are widely built on political participation and equal treatment, so felon disenfranchisement laws enacted in 48 States contradicts United States ratification to universal human rights and equal suffrage (Uggen, C. Manza, J. 2006). Subsequently, the author maintain that disproportionate effects of felon disenfranchisement laws on African American violates guarantee to nondiscrimination as a human

The right to vote is at the core of what it means to participate in one’s democracy. The 15th, 19th, and 26th amendments brought more people into the voting population by explicitly extending the right to vote to all races, genders, and people over the age of 18. However, a significant number of people are unable to vote today because of their criminal background. The increase of felon disenfranchisement was strategically coupled with the rise of mass incarceration and should be outlawed either by congressional act or by constitutional amendment.

Felon disenfranchisement is a serious issue in the United States. It removes a person’s right to vote after incarceration. It is sometimes speculated that disenfranchisement racially discriminates. This is often thought to be true because the majority of those who are disenfranchised are African American males. While it does have roots in racial disadvantaging, it does not

The words “civil death” carry a powerful, fear-inducing quality and they should. Millions of Americans have experienced the loss of civil rights on varying levels since the founding of this country over 200 years ago. Many more in other countries throughout history have experienced the same fate. England adopted the idea of denying convicts their right to vote from ancient Greece and Rome. In addition to losing the right to vote, England also took a convict’s property, denied them the right to appear in court, and also prohibited them from entering into contracts. This practice of civil death was carried over from England and implemented in the colonies when they settled in North America. ("Felony Voting Rights") Although the application of civil death has altered as the United States of America matured as a country, it remains as a widely debated topic in current events. Whether felons should regain their civil rights after they have “paid their debt to society” or not is rarely addressed by the federal government. It is, however, a topic that is addressed on a state level in many states almost every year. Some believe that a felon should lose their civil rights indefinitely. Others believe that once someone has served their sentence and paid their fines and restitution, civil rights should be fully restored. While many civil disabilities remain in place for felons, 30 states repealed or amended their laws dealing with

What if you couldn’t find somewhere to live? This is an actual issue that many Americans face every day. Not because of the lack of money, but because of their criminal records felons to be specific. Having a criminal record, now in days is not hard, you can be felon for something small or for something big. However, once a felon you are out of luck with finding a place to live on your own. I think it is the smallest and most irrelevant things that our government take into notice. The government will never see and think like a person who grew up in poverty. If you have a criminal record and can’t find a place to live to better yourself what the next step? It can only go south from here. No one should struggle to find a place to live and call home.

    Often, we paint a fairytale view of life for ourselves and our children. Sometimes, an author paints a frightfully realistic picture of life and forces us to reconsider the fairytale. In Shirley Jackson’s story, "The Lottery," a town each year conducts a lottery in which the winner or looser, in this case, is stoned to death by his or her own neighbors. The tradition is supposed to uphold social structure within the town, but in order to comprehend the true meaning of the story you must be able to read between the lines. "The Lottery" is a story about a town that has let its traditions go too far. Also, it is clear that the story contains eye-opening facts that lead me to