Felon Disenfranchisement Essay

The idea of taking away a criminal's right to vote has been around since ancient Greece and Rome. A condition called "civil death" in Europe involved the forfeiture of property, the loss of the right to appear in court, and a prohibition on entering into contracts, as well as the loss of voting rights. Civil death was brought to America by English colonists, but most features of it were eventually abolished, leaving only felon disenfranchisement intact in some parts of modern America.The United States is one of the world’s most unyielding nations when it comes to denying the right to vote to citizens convicted of serious crimes. A significant 6.1 million Americans are forbidden to vote because of what scholars call “felon disenfranchisement,”

http://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/felons-voting-rights-history/2015/04/16/id/638889/ "Disfranchisement." West 's Encyclopedia of American Law. 2005. Retrieved May 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3437701425.html “Felon Voting.” ProCon. 2008.

By voting and adopting these laws, the majority of the society condemn then minorities by restricting their rights, and therefore engender more convicted offenders that are part of visible minorities. This racial profiling is not necessarily voluntary. It is caused by implicit bias, which means that multiple ‘‘social judgements’’ are made in an unconscious process that is racist and judgmental. It results in the harsher sentences often seen in courts (Lynch, 2013, p.100). Racial profiling is also due to the fact that differences can be seen as a threat.

Hence, the author promotes an intersectional approach, such as the one developed in Oakland, Ca. that gives individuals “access to identity documents, housing, job training, drug and alcohol treatment, and education. (It also) bans employers from asking about prior convictions on job applications; ends probation curfews…repeals California’s three-strikes law; reallocates funds from prison construction to education” (19). Spade also supports abolishing the federal database for immigration checks. In essence, the author suggests that the United States’ legal system must be transformed into a “fair and neutral system,” that would enable it to successfully address intersectionality and the inequality, which accompanies it

Moreover, the aftermath of incarceration for convicted African-American felons entails that they are unable to vote. The constitution implements this idea that anybody can vote regardless of race or gender, but criminals are unable to vote. Criminals occupy the lower caste in society meaning that nobody wants to be like them ,stereotypes are associated with them, and nobody wants to advocate for them or their rights. Michelle Alexander explicitly describes the ongoing oppression by stating that “ Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great great-grandfather, he has been denied the right to participate in our electoral democracy” ( Alexander). Alexander is talking about the black man when she says “he” because majority of the

In her book, The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander who was a civil rights lawyer and legal scholar, reveals many of America’s harsh truths regarding race within the criminal justice system. Though the Jim Crow laws have long been abolished, a new form has surfaced, a contemporary system of racial control through mass incarceration. In this book, mass incarceration not only refers to the criminal justice system, but also a bigger picture, which controls criminals both in and out of prison through laws, rules, policies and customs. The New Jim Crow that Alexander speaks of has redesigned the racial caste system, by putting millions of mainly blacks, as well as Hispanics and some whites, behind bars

The high incarceration rate of Black Americans has pervasive and chronically negative stigmas regarding the social and economic vitality of the Black American community, such as a lack of democratic participation and violence within urban communities (Burris-Kitchen & Burris, 2011). According to Forman Jr. (2012), some of 5 the negative affects of systemic racism of Black Americans born into the hip-hop generation who have been convicted include the ineligibility of public assistance programs such as health care, food stamps, public housing, student loans, and some employment opportunities. Additionally, many of the individuals suffering from the stigma of incarceration come from backgrounds of disadvantage such as single parent homes, low

The recommendation calls for civil rights advocates to put mass incarceration on their agenda similar in the ways civil rights advocate’s affirmative action agenda. In my opinion, America is at a turning point where mass incarceration is slowly fading away with state lawmakers trying to cut prison cost. Being labeled as a felon is a stigma that can and will follow individuals for the rest of their lives. However, there is a change in the atmosphere and how society view individuals with felony records. Opportunities are slowly becoming available such as jobs and education, allowing these individuals to reenter society.

Michelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.

Since incarceration leads to political and civil disenfranchisement in the United States, the mass incarceration of black and brown men and the consequent loss of rights to participate in the civil society and its processes are especially concerning. The authors argue that the interplay of racial residential segregation, low-quality schooling, and exposure and vulnerabilities to crime and violence so prevalent in these segregated neighborhoods have established a “public school to prison”

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: The New Press. Michelle Alexander in her book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" argues that law enforcement officials routinely racially profile minorities to deny them socially, politically, and economically as was accustomed in the Jim Crow era.

We live in a society where ethnic minorities are target for every minimal action and/or crimes, which is a cause to be sentenced up to 50 years in jail. African Americans and Latinos are the ethnic minorities with highest policing crimes. In chapter two of Michelle Alexander’s book, The Lockdown, we are exposed to the different “crimes” that affects African American and Latino minorities. The criminal justice system is a topic discussed in this chapter that argues the inequality that people of color as well as other Americans are exposed to not knowing their rights. Incarceration rates, unreasonable suspicions, and pre-texts used by officers are things that play a huge role in encountering the criminal justice system, which affects the way

Is your first instinct to say one with a criminal conviction should never be a teacher? Why or Why Not? Discuss. I personally feel a person who holds a criminal background should be able to be a teacher under the following conditions: criminal conviction was due to a minor infraction, the quantity of convictions is minimal, and the conviction did not occur recently. Minor infractions can included the following: drug possession, petty theft, and driving under the influence (DUI). The quantity of convictions should be limited to no more than two incidents. Finally, the criminal conviction should not be a recent event, as this may indicate the individual is at higher risk for a repeat criminal offense. As mentioned in the book Legal Rights

In the United States, there is an estimated number of two million people in prison, those inmates do not get to cast a vote in any elections (Lecture notes 2017). Prisoners should be able to have a say so in who run their country they live in, but they don’t think and it’s not fair. Imagine two million people not being able to vote because of their rap sheet. In my Introduction to Probation and Parole class, we had a debate on this topic

Something will always need to be fixed in society because society is a reflection of us, and we are not perfect. Recently, there’s been many issues that have caught the attention of people living all across the world. Things such as police brutality, sexual assault in the workplace, and immigration law, just to name a few, but there’s also been an underlying issue that people are becoming more informed about, and that I believe matters - prison reform. Prison reform matters because in many instances, prisoners are treated inhumanely when they are locked up, and aren’t treated as humans when they have served their time. I believe we can bring about change in the prison system by changing the way we punish people who do commit crimes and focusing more on actual rehabilitation.