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Advantages Of Felony Disenfranchisement

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A Civil Service The United States of America has one of the largest prison systems in the world. In the corrections industry there are many tools used to rehabilitate and to punish individuals who have committed crimes. Punishment and rehabilitation often have conflicting approaches to dealing with reprimands in the legal system. Rehabilitation seeks to remove the person from their environment so they can learn how to be a productive citizen. Punishment attempts to teach a lesson though the removal of freedoms and the restrictions of rights. Felony disenfranchisement, where a convicted felon is banned from voting in any elections for the rest of their lives, is one of the more controversial punishments. The use of felony disenfranchisement …show more content…
When someone is released from prison they go back to living life as a normal civilian, paying taxes, following laws, and contributing to the community, however an ex-felony does not have all the rights that a normal civilians have. An ex-felon faces many difficulties during reintegration to society, revoking political representation only further removes them from their community. A member of a conservative think tank named Center for Equal Opportunity insists that “somebody who is not willing to follow the law should not claim a right to make the law for everyone else,” (Disenfranchisement of Felons 5). A spokesperson for a former governor of Virginia condemns thinking of ex-felons as still being criminals by stating “they’ve paid their debt, they’ve served their sentence, they’ve been cleared of any problems with the law… and they should be allowed to have their rights back” (Hammack, Laurence 1). In a proper reintroduction to society a person should feel obligated to vote and participate in the up keep of their city, state, and country by electing representatives to serve in positions of power. A spokesperson for the Center for Justice …show more content…
A writer for New York Review of Books explains, “To exclude 5.3 million people from the polls, is to offend the principals of universal suffrage and undermine democratic legitimism” (7). The majority of supporters of disenfranchisement are conservative republicans, as opposed to the overwhelming majority of disenfranchised voters who are minorities that tend to vote for liberal democrats. With a large group of potentially democratic voters the Republican Party has a reason to keep felony disenfranchisement laws strict. Supporters of the law attack movements to lessen disenfranchisement laws, for instance, a member of Virginia’s House of Delegates made claims that, “clearly the groups that are soliciting these felons’ voting rights in Virginia, predisposed to be in support of [Democratic presidential candidate Barack] Obama, and I am sure this registration effort is designed to help their candidate” (6). Both parties know what the effect of letting felons vote might be and that is why in most conservative states the disenfranchisement laws are

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