Former inmates should have the right to vote.
The laws in the United States that strip them of this right have a disproportionate effect on people of color, discourage ex-cons from returning to society as productive citizens and conflict with democratic values.
According to a report released recently by Human Rights Watch and the Sentencing Project, nearly 3.9 million Americans - one in 50 eligible voters - cannot vote. One million of these people have already finished their sentences.
No other nation denies voting rights to so many people because of their prison record. In most states even nonviolent offenses such as writing a bad check, shoplifting or possession of a small amount of marihuana can cost you the right to vote.
In 46 states and District of Columbia, criminal disenfranchisement laws deny the vote to all convicted adults in prison. Thirty-two states won't allow felons on parole to vote, and 29 states deny voting rights to those who are on probation. In 14 states, former inmates are barred from voting for life after they complete their sentences.
Many black people are casualties of a war on drugs that discriminates based on race.
According to Human Rights Watch and the Sentencing Project, African Americans make up 13 percent to 15 percent of all drug users, yet they account for 36 percent of all arrests for drug possession. Between 1985 and 1995, the number of blacks imprisoned for drug crimes increased eight-fold from 16,600 to 134,000. In 1996, the incarceration rate for black men was 8 times that of white men.
In the United States 13 percent of black men - 1.4 million people - cannot vote. In Alabama and Florida almost one-third of black men are not eligible to vote. This is a civil-rights issue.
The late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall said, "it is doubful...whether a state can demonstrate either a compelling or rational policy interest in denying former felons the right to vote." He characterized the policy as a "hindrance to the efforts of society to rehabilitate former felons and convert them into law-abiding and productive citizens."
Some states are starting to agree. In Florida, legislators introduced a bill that would restore voting rights to inmates one year after their release from prison. Texas, which has disenfranchised 21 percent of its African American men, has eliminated its two-year waiting period for the restoration of voter rights.
"If we want former felons to become good citizens, we must give them rights as responsibilities, and there is no greater responsibility than voting," says Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.
We should heed the examples of Florida and Texas and move to restore voting rights to former felons. And we should ask whether those who are in prison because of our ill-conceived war on drugs really deserve to lose their franchise. I believe they don't. Serving time behind bars is stiff penalty in itself, especially for nonviolent crimes. The added penalty of revoking the most basic citizenship right serves no purpose.
Return to Fall 1999 Drum | Return to Drum Home | Return to Rites of Passage Home