The Sentencing Project: Disenfranchisement News & Updates - 11/02/07

New York: Hearings Scheduled to Consider Parolee Voting Rights The New York State Commission on Sentencing Reform has recommended that voting rights be restored to individuals on parole in an effort to improve reentry by way of civic participation. A series of public hearings to consider this and other issues are scheduled starting November 13. Currently, in New York those with felony convictions under parole supervision, as well as New York citizens with a felony conviction from another state, are banned from voting. A majority of the Commission believe that parolees' rights should be restored, according to a Commission reform proposal. Florida: New Restoration Policy Needs to be 'Reengineered' State officials are reporting that more individuals - 35,000 to be exact - have regained their civil rights after the state's executive clemency board in April restored the right to vote to those with non-violent records "during this period than during any other comparable period in recent memory," states a Tallahassee Democrat op-ed by Mark Schlakman. Nonetheless, there are close to a million more individuals for whom the state must decide eligibility for rights restoration - a process that could take years. Schlakman writes that Gov. Charlie Crist's Cabinet "must revisit and reengineer that process to achieve more comprehensive reform." He further said individuals with felony records cannot easily gain employment and suggested that the connection between rights restoration and ex-offender eligibility should be omitted. "There would be no compelling need to distinguish violent offenses from non-violent offenses to determine fitness to vote. Similarly, there would be no need to subject rights-restoration cases to multiple levels of scrutiny and cumbersome and costly investigations," Schlakman wrote. National: Disenfranchisement is an 'Artifact of Jim Crow' Arguing that there is no reasonable justification behind felon disenfranchisement, "Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy" (Oxford University Press 2006) by Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen is reviewed in the Ohio State University Journal of Criminal Law. The review, entitled "Felon Disenfranchisement and Democracy in the Late Jim Crow Era," is by University of Arizona Professor Gabriel J. Chin, and focuses on the history and policy behind disenfranchisement. Chin writes: "It might be said that felon disenfranchisement is a folkway rather than a policy; it enjoys remarkably wide acceptance in codes across the country without a well-articulated justification or rationale, particularly for the period after full completion of sentence." The Michigan Citizen published an opinion editorial on disenfranchisement and how penalties for a crime continue even after time is served. Calling disenfranchisement a way to suppress black votes, author Dr. Henrie Treadwell, associate director of Development at the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine and director of Community Voices, also commented on each state's varying disenfranchisement laws. "The state laws are so varied that from jurisdiction to jurisdiction there is no consistency on what convictions will trigger a loss of voting rights," the author wrote. - - - - - - Help The Sentencing Project continue to bring you news and updates on disenfranchisement! Make a contribution today. Contact Information: e-mail: [email protected], web: http://www.sentencingproject.org