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What Rights Should We Accord Felons?
One of the virtues of being the age I am is that I have former students who are out and about in the world, and every once in a while one of them does something that sets me chortling. Here is one such example — a letter that appeared in Pravda-on-the-Potomac on Sunday:
As a retired state and federal prosecutor, I was surprised to read in Gideon Yaffe’s July 28 op-ed, “Let felons and prisoners vote,” that prisoners “should be allowed to vote, no matter their crimes,” apparently because “we cannot hold citizens to account for violating our laws while denying them a say over those laws.”
If so, why stop there? From the rise of Athenian democracy 2,500 years ago, through the enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army, to our 26th Amendment, which in 1971 enfranchised 18-year-olds, the right to vote has been based in part on the ability to bear arms. Many Americans believe that the right to bear arms, as set forth by the Second Amendment, is both fundamental and inextricably linked to the right to vote. If the professor is right, convicted murderers, terrorists and traitors ought to have the same rights that other U.S. voters have.
A reality TV show can’t be far behind. Perhaps it should be named “Gladiators.”
@roblong? There might be an opportunity here. Perhaps this show could be a Ricochet project.
Published in General
What are you saying? Gun control would constitute putting dangerous hardware in a safe or somehow sequestering it. Our bill of rights is absolute, but once you’ve stepped over the line and endangered your fellow citizens, they are gone. Depending on the severity of your offense, they may be permanently gone. There is no Constitutional protection that ensures that criminals have any right to full measures of those rights; it is not a suicide pact. What did Mr. Rahe reference in his post, or what causes you to say, well done?
Welcome to the slippery slope of gun confiscation, the only real method of control. Please make a salient argument for any other method.
If I were you, I’d exercise great care in evaluating the “sides”. Your comprehension may be weighted on the side of rhetoric rather than reality and logic.
How about limiting the classes of felonies that entail forfeiture of voting rights? If you commit the traditional, common-law felonies of murder, rape, assault, robbery, larceny, or fraud, no voting rights. But if you commit the newer felonies of possession of a controlled substance or violations of regulatory schemes, voting rights can be restored after you complete your sentence. Anyone on board?
I recently saw Dinesh D’souza new movie Hillary’s America. At the end of the movie he urged all to get out and vote. He also mentioned that because of his breaking of finance laws he is no longer allowed to vote. It some how seemed wrong.
We now have felonies for the smallest of crimes. The restoration of rights after one has fulfilled their debt to society makes sense. That method should not be paying a large “donation” to a President or Governor or political party.
I come back to whats the rationale for preventing people from voting? They have as much stake as anyone else in what happens politically. What does withholding voting privileges accomplish? Whats the argument for what it is supposed to accomplish?
So you think Dr. Rahe supported restoration of voting privileges?
Well not so much… Most states if not all require concealed weapons permits that counter an absolute interpretation of our Bill of Rights.
I think the justification for disenfranchisement based on a felony conviction goes back to English common law. Typically, felons who were not executed were stripped of a number of different civil rights. But in the U.S. context, I think felony disenfranchisement can be justified by viewing the Constitution as a social contract, the breach of which (by commission of a felony) justifies some exclusions from full participation in the political process.
Not saying that fully justifies disenfranchisement as a policy position, but I think those are two traditional conceptual justifications.
Felons have demonstrated by their felonies that they have contempt for society and are unwilling to live by its laws. Allowing such people the franchise is an insult to citizens who have not demonstrated such contempt. Completion of a prison sentence does not mean that the prisoner is rehabilitated. It only means that the prisoner has completed the sentence and will no longer be incarcerated. Most convicted felons have the opportunity to demonstrate their rehabilitation and apply for restoration of voting rights after their release. This is how it should be. It shouldn’t be an automatic process based simply on release from prison.
Exactly. It allows for those who choose to live outside of civil society the ability to do so (and suffer the consequences) but also allows for a redemptive path back into the civil society.
How about restoration being a reward for good behavior while in prison…. while those who aren’t good prisoners have to work on getting the right back after release?
Different issue. My point was that if you claim that you’re only accountable for the laws in which you participate in creating, then no non-legislator is accountable.
As for your issue, the right to vote is an individual right, but the need to keep representatives accountable is a collective responsibility – all of us as a whole. Because it’s a collective and not an individual responsibility, the individual right to vote has no relation to it whatsoever.
Not really. What I don’t like is the term “gun control”.
The reward for good behavior in prison should be food and a bed.
Taking away felons voting rights is a good idea. We could make adjustments for different kind of crimes, maybe different probation periods after release. More could be done in this direction, too. We should limit access to government benefits like food stamps and housing, too. Force them to work for a living. If they have to work all day they won’t have the free time for a life of crime.
Sounds like something I’d support. I mean, we can quibble about some of the details. Felony for theft varies wildly by state. And why privilege regulatory violations above say… larceny or fraud? But in general, I’d say the big ones– murder, rape (not an inclusive list)– I’m skeptical of restoring voting rights. But other than that, if you have served your time in jail, then I can see letting people vote.
Will we have a whole bunch of felons team up and eliminate some law turning their town into a lord of the flies style town? No. Will it incentivize some politicians to be narrowly more friendly to felons and hostile to law enforcement? There is some small possibility. But it isn’t like that wouldn’t/doesn’t happen already.
If prison is to be a punishment for violating the social contract, the punishment is (temporary?) banishment form that society; once that punishment is up and the violator is deemed fit to be restored to civil society, then they should be returned to civil society; if a violator is not deemed fit to return fully to society, why then turn them out to society? If prison is to be rehabilitative, the violator shouldn’t be released until he is rehabilitated; otherwise, why release them?
I guess the trouble is, we try to do both, but end up doing neither, picking the worst part of each.
This is an excellent point. It is weird because it used to not be that way. The colonial system of justice would probably be unacceptable to us for a variety of reason, but it was one that punished crimes quickly and reintegrated people back into society. It recognized that offenders were still part of the community. Part of what happened with our prison/justice system was simply path dependency. The infrastructure of the prison system (both physical and bureaucratic) grew at a time when it fashionable to believe that prisoners were “different.” The idea that the criminal element “isn’t like us” morally/mentally/chemically. So that’s how the policy grew. So we had this infrastructure that was designed to cage people and we never had a major challenge to those assumptions, so we just stuck with it. So here we are today.
Two points to add:
First, one could still say “ignorance of the law is no excuse” with a straight face because the law criminalized comparatively few things. No such thing as felony possession of substances, or felony copyright infringement, or really much of any of the white-collar crime.
Second, somehow, we got the idea that it’s kinder to jail someone for years rather than shame them or hit them a few times and let them go.
Not kinder. Just more effective at removing predators from society.
Since the dead seem to make their votes count in cities like Chicago count I’m not sure convicted felons really have any problems registering to vote.
What’s the point of the criminal justice system?
If it’s to remove the criminals from the streets who are too dangerous to be let loose, let’s just kill them and be done with it.
If it’s to punish the criminals, administer a corporal punishment and be done with it.
If it’s to warn the potential criminals off, punish the criminals in public. Seeing that is going to be far more effective than disappearing them from their neighborhood.
The only reason to lock people up for years is to force them to undergo rehabilitation, in which case their slate ought to be clean when they leave.
If you believe that people in prison are really undergoing rehabilitation, then I’ve got a number of very nice bridges for sale.
No, I don’t think they are. That was rational for creating prisons as an institution, and I would suggest researching the Pennsylvania and Auburn systems if you’re not familiar with the history of our prison system. My point is that punishment should match the goals we are trying to achieve, and frankly, our current system fails at every goal we could have for it. Our system of criminal justice is arbitrary and slow, and the punishment we give out succeeds mostly in costing mountains of money and training criminals to be better at criminality. (Oh, and being the mental institution system we no longer have; 50% of inmates are recognizably mentally ill and really ought to be receiving treatment, but hey, it totally made sense to act like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was a documentary!)
Why is it as conservatives we’ll laugh at the silliness of time-outs for childhood misbehavior but we think that putting someone in time-out for years works?
Its the difficulty in measuring prisons, since there are so many different types of prisons, all with different aims. Some states tend towards a punishment model, and others tend towards a more rehabilitative model. Privatized prisons tend towards having more rooms and space for rehabiliation than public ones, but prisoners in most states, especially FL, are shifted around so often it becomes difficult to get good measurements or track progress. But it is a possibility to make prison more rehab oriented. The problem is that there is so much debate as to whether prison is criminogenic for adults or whether it reduces the impulse. Its usually considered that is is definitely criminogenic for youthful offenders.
Re: @amyschley
Re: your 4:48 post. I don’t think it is quite like that. Those choices aren’t really that binary. And path dependency in the justice system is a big thing. But the policies in place reprsent a lot of competing claims about crime and rehab across the various states– its a bit of a mess. Probably… the best answer to your question about what the point of the CJ system– budgets. Budget strain is probably the best predictor of legislative action w/respect to criminal policy. From there, we can just hope get some responsible policy making that takes into account good theory.
I think you make some good points. But it depends on what goals you are want to achieve. And how you measure it. Our criminal justice system mainly locks up violent felons. It does reduce crime and save lives. Given the high costs of murders, it saves lots of money. Does it rehab? Depends on what that word means. It doesn’t necessarily turn people towards crime (except for youth bootcamps and detention). We are definitely keeping some people in their past the time they’d be expected to reoffend. And we do have a lot of sick and mentally ill people though. The major issue would be the competing solutions.
Not if the goal is the removal (albeit temporary) of criminals from the society of those they prey upon.
Um, it’s all of the above. Which means your simple actions for any given item are not appropriate when combined into multiple goals. Jail keeps criminals off the street, punishes them, warns their criminal peers, and offers time for rehabilitation. How effective jail is at any of those functions varies, but does not invalidate the other functions. Non-jail punishments also have aspects of these justice functions as well. I see the length of a sentence correlating to the punishment, but may not be sufficient for rehab, and I see actual rehab as the key to wiping the slate. It varies. Restoration of rights should not be tied to release for that reason.
Any one of us could be locked up for a felony. All it takes is for a person to make him/herself obnoxious enough to the regime. So, yes, limit the classes of felonies that entail forfeiture of voting rights.
There are two separate questions which everyone is mixing up. What right should we accord felons which I think is almost none. Were we are really disagree on is what rights we can remove from former felons? The second question becomes when you become a former felon. If you believe in life time removals of civil right for specific or most crimes then basically you are saying if a person commits a specific crime they can never be a former felon.
In other words there are two main camps. One camp thinks the suspension of civil liberties are not separate punishments but should be tied into other forms of punishment such as incarceration, or probation. The other thinks they are totally independent and stand on their own as their own form of punishment. The problem with the permanent suspension of civil liberties being completely separate from other form of punishment is this. There is nothing stopping tryannts from passing laws which suspend life time right for any crime. Thus basically nullifying sections of the constitution.
I think the most egregious example of this is the life time registry on sex offender list for statutory rap especially when the couple end up getting married. That is we basically we lump fornicators in with rapist and pedophiles when it comes to life long punishment. I really can’t think of a more perverted and cruel punishment right now that is so prevalent across so many states in America. So it is sick perversions of the laws like this you get when you think it is perfectly acceptable to not tie suspension of civil liberties into other forms of punishment.