Comments on: Disenfranchising felons

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 05:11:06 +0000

“capital punishment for graffiti would indeed be wrong” Strange, because originally in the common law a ‘felony’ was defined as being a potentially capital offense. Making graffiti writing punishable by death would return us to the original meaning.

By: Rob Lyman

Rob Lyman — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 15:56:20 +0000

DJW, You are correct that sanctions ought to roughly correspond to the severity of the offense; capital punishment for graffiti would indeed be wrong. And, as I acknowledged in my first post, the United States have far too many felonies and far too severe punishments for many relatively minor crimes. I sense that many commenters would like to see drugs decriminalized, and that this is the subtext driving much of the discussion. I would agree in principle with drug decriminalization, for both libertarian and practical reasons. But I can’t muster a ton of sympathy for those who break drug laws. Convicted felons, especially from drug felonies, knew going in they were taking a risk of serious punishment; to complain after the fact that they don’t get to vote just makes me think, well, maybe if voting is so important to you, you shouldn’t use/deal drugs. Perhaps the sanction is too harsh (I think it is), but it is easily avoided, and it is the fault of the felon that he failed to avoid it. That is the meaning of “a little weak.”

By: Greg Hunter

Greg Hunter — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 13:56:25 +0000

Well said Mr. Kiernan, Americans are not informed of what constitutes a felony, nor the ramifications of that designation in US society. What constitutes a felony in the U.K. or Australia? Does the application of spray graffiti?

By: W. Kiernan

W. Kiernan — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 12:12:50 +0000

While you guys are discussing the pros and cons I would like to remind you that here in Florida, spray-painting graffiti is a felony. I would be in favor of restoring the (limited) second amendment rights of people who once were misguided and caught teenage graffiti taggers. I would be against the legal sale of guns to citizens with prior convictions for, say, armed robbery. Of course that's why laws used to make a sensible distinction between felonies and misdemeanors.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 06:51:16 +0000

Well, we’re not all British here if that makes you feel a little better! I find the disenfranchisement policy fairly repulsive, though I can’t provide anything like a decent defence of my preferred position. I have fairly extreme pro-suffrage positions (I’d lower the voting age to at least 16, maybe 14, for example) which I’m more strongly committed to than any rival consideration. This isn’t an argument, but I think if you start down the road of debating who is and isn’t deserving of a vote you start diluting the core principles behind democracy fairly quickly, and I think that’s a very dangerous road. But before I started working in America it wasn’t something I even had to think about. As far as I know this kind of policy is not even on the radar screen in Australia. There’s some occasional movement on whether current prisoners should be able to vote. I think in Victoria the rule is that if it’s a sentence below a certain length (maybe 12 months, maybe 24) you can vote, otherwise no. (That’s completely off the top of my head, so I could be completely wrong.) But I’d never even heard a suggestion that ex-convicts should not be able to vote. I think when I first heard about the American policy I thought people must be talking about current prisoners, because the idea of ex-prisoners not having voting rights seemed too absurd to even think about. Of course, you’d expect an Australian to think that :)

By: April Follies

April Follies — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 06:26:37 +0000

Apropos of nothing in particular, there’s something highly unsettling (to me, as an American) about encountering a group of British citizens who are engaged in an in-depth discussion on factors of American society of which the average American is blissfully unaware. Rather puts things in perspective. Not a happy perspective, but perspective nonetheless.

By: Curtis Crawford

Curtis Crawford — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 04:32:52 +0000

I think the best reason for denying the vote to felons is when the severity of the crime shows a lack of respect for the society’s rules. It is appropriate to insist on such respect. Under this principle, minor offenses should not trigger disenfranchisement, but major offenses should. An important goal of imprisonment should be rehabilitation, including social integration of the offender as a law-abiding citizen. Under this principle, an ex-felon’s vote should be restorable after he or she meets reasonable requirements. The Report cited by Chris makes a strong case to the effect that, although denial of certain civil rights is an ancient response to crime, it was employed by Southern states after the Civil War as a means of denying the vote to blacks. One method was to punish by disenfranchisement only those offenses most likely to be committed by blacks. However, the fact that disenfranchisement has been crafted in specific ways to accomplish racist ends is not a valid reason for abandoning the policy, if there are good, racially non-discriminatory reasons for it.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 03:15:52 +0000

I’m with Brett on the gun question: I’d like to see voting tied to gun rights just to watch lefties squirm over who gets BOTH rights back. I’m with you guys on this one, too—mostly because I’d like to see righties squirm on who gets BOTH rights back. This proposal would be nothing but gravy for Democrats, electorally.

By: djw

djw — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 01:31:59 +0000

Sebastian, your points make some sense. The problem, of course, is that they would all work much better as arguments against ever releasing bad felons from imprisonment in the first place. The harm they could do through voting is almost certainly entirely hypothetical, and pales in comparison to the harm they can do through physical freedom. Should all “bad” felons spend the rest of their lives in prison? It’s hard to see how your position doesn’t imply this.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 00:46:08 +0000

Brett, you case argues too much. The same argument applies to the fact that we don’t allow non-citizens to vote. If we don’t check to see who is eligible to vote, non-citizens could easily vote. Making felons ineligible or eligible doesn’t change that. A major part of imprisonment is segregating the convict from society so that he cannot physically endanger members of the society. That danger diminishes dramatically with age. I’m not sure of all the reasons for disallowing felon voting, but surely one of them is that he has shown by his poor decision making vis-a-vis the society, that he is willing to risk danger to society for no justifiable reason. This kind of threat does not go away upon the end of the sentencing term.

By: DJW

DJW — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 00:04:27 +0000

Sebastian: Can you articulate an affirmative reason why the severity of the crime ought to matter after the sentence is up w/r/t voting rights? If we allow that prisoners shouldn’t be voting (I’m not sure about this, but I’ll go along for now, for the sake of discussion), doesn’t the length of the sentence impose differential “voting rights” punishment on different classes of felons? As I understand your case, the argument seems to be that the thing they did was so bad that voting rights should never be returned, even if there is no obvious or substantive harm to the rest of society for returning those voting rights. It seems to me the freedom of movement associated with non-imprisonment is a much more serious and important bundle of rights than voting. To suggest that some should have the first but not the second strikes me as analogous to offering the grounded teenager the car keys, but telling them they’re still not allowed to use the toaster. (I realize this denigrates the importance of voting, which is not my intention. Only in comparison to non-imprisonment do I see voting as a relatively unimportant right) Brett, thanks, I understand your position. I have no problem with firearm rights being a bit more restricted and bureaucratized than voting rights in theory, although the considerations you cite give me pause.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Mon, 08 Dec 2003 23:45:03 +0000

The reason I don’t believe that restoring the right to keep and bear arms to felons poses any particular threat to society, is that depriving them of that right, does not deprive them of guns. Unless, of course, you’re talking about convicted felons who are now law abiding… That’s the benefit end of things. The cost end, is that denying convicted felons this, or any other right, requires that you maintain a whole system of different classes of citizenship, and in order to do so, must place the state between ALL citizens, and the exercise of those rights. In order for a small percentage of the population to be denied their 2nd amendment rights, the ENTIRE population must go crawling to the government for permission to exercise those rights. And asking for permission to do something, however freely it may be granted, contradicts the very concept of a “right”. It’s not worth it, in the case of guns, or voting. The putative benefit to be gained from this system of multiple classes of citizenship, is not worth the cost and intrusiveness of the aparatus necessary to maintain it. Or the temptation on the part of those who oppose the right to expand the lower class in order to reduce the exercise of the right.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Mon, 08 Dec 2003 23:31:34 +0000

BTW, correct me if I’m wrong, but from the pdf document it seems that they are arguing about and including statistics on felons even when they are still in prison. Which IMHO is a much less controversial topic than disallowing voting after incarceration. “People used to describe those who had served their time as having “paid their debt to society.” We don’t hear that phrase so much any more. To an increasing number of Americans, evidently, the stain of having been convicted of a felony is permanent and ineradicable. I really don’t think this was always the case.” That is a phrase which came about when voter disenfranchisement based on felon status was even more common than now. I think one of the problems is that ‘felon’ has become way too broad of a catagory. I have no problem with the idea that rapists, murderers, child molestors, armed robbers and other highly dangerous criminals shouldn’t get to vote ever again. I’m much less comfortable about ‘possession with intent to distribute’ cases never getting to vote again. Probably a relatively good compromise on the issue would leave the more traditional felons without a vote, while letting other felons resume voting at the end of incarceration.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Mon, 08 Dec 2003 21:26:37 +0000

On this see Christopher Uggen and Jeff Manza, “Democratic Contraction? The Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States.” American Sociological Review, 67 (6), December 2002, 777-803.

By: djw

djw — Mon, 08 Dec 2003 21:01:57 +0000

Rob said: “The law may be unjust or bad policy—it often is—but if you obey it, you can work to change it with your vote. If you choose to break it, complaining about the sanction society applies is a little weak.” I’m not sure what you mean by “a little weak,” it’s a strange phrase that seems to wish to dismiss these sorts of claims while acknowledging that such a dismissal may not be entirely warranted. At any rate, I find this argument, at least when couched in terms this abstract, deeply unconvincing. As far as I can tell, the argument is that once you’ve knowingly broken the law, you’ve no place to complain about the sanction. This is not a principle human beings apply in just about any social situation I can think of. If jaywalkers were given 10 years hard labor, they would certainly have the right to complain. If I failed my students for showing up 30 seconds late to class, they’d have the right to complain. If a soldier was sent to the brig for years for failing to polish his gun properly, he’d have a right to complain. I could come up with an example for any social institution imaginable—our social institutions generally take into account the fact that its members are fallible. This point is actually well grounded in traditional liberal social contract theory. According to Locke, one of the main reasons we ought to quit the state of nature and enter the state of society is to ensure fairness, consistency and proportionality for punishing violators of the laws of nature.