More ex-felons in Alabama registering to vote after disenfranchisement reform
47 replies, posted
https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/local/solutions-journalism/2018/11/02/can-felons-vote-voting-rights-restoration-alabama-felony-disenfranchisement/1835021002/
Roderick Bass can’t remember the last candidate he voted for, his memory now smudged like bubbles on a filled-in ballot. He remembers it was a 1984 election in Florida. After a judge
found Bass guilty of drug possession three years later, he remembers being told he'd never vote again.
“When I went to court and was found guilty, they told me I’d lose my voting rights. … I didn’t realize at the time because of my lifestyle, but that’s a lot to lose,” said Bass, who moved to
Alabama 14 years ago. "When your voice no longer means anything, that takes a lot from someone." Like Florida and several other states, Alabama strips voting rights from those
incarcerated, those on parole and probation, and even some who have completed their sentence.
But the passage of the Definition of Moral Turpitude Act in 2017 — which defined the crimes that do and don't preclude those previously convicted of felonies from voting — was a
victory for voting rights activists and established clear, objective guidelines for re-enfranchisement of Alabamians. That includes Bass, who successfully registered to vote in
September.
Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles assistant executive director Darrell Morgan said he's seen a "spike" in applications for reinstatement since the passage of the Definition of
Moral Turpitude Act, but because no centralized list of newly registered ex-felons exists, the success of the Act cannot be tied to a hard figure. Nonprofits managing grassroots voting
reinstatement efforts across the state estimate a few thousand have regained their right to vote this election season.
Prior to the passage of the Definition of Moral Turpitude Act last year, no clear legal standard for restoring voting rights existed in Alabama for people like Bass, who had served their
time but were told — or assumed — they'd never vote again. The 1901 Alabama Constitution removed the right to vote from anyone convicted of a crime of “moral turpitude.” Exactly
what that was, however, was up for interpretation.
The law established a 46-conviction list of disqualifying crimes, some of the more heinous offenses such as murder, sex crimes, crimes against children, terrorism, torture and robbery.
Lower-level crimes such as third-degree burglary and drug possession charges like Bass' — the most common felony conviction in the state, according to The Sentencing Project —
were excluded.
Even those charged with crimes of moral turpitude can potentially reinstate their right to vote if they successfully apply for a pardon or a Certificate of Eligibility to Register to Vote
(CERV) with the Board of Pardons and Paroles. Advocacy organizations still see areas for improvement.
Ex-felons who qualify for a CERV cannot have their voting rights restored without first paying all outstanding debts associated with their conviction (although they can request a
remission of fines and fees from the Board of Pardons and Paroles).
Get caught with a little bag of weed and lose your right to vote. Seems fair :downs:
The alchohol/tobacco/private prison industries will it.
Even people in jail should be able to vote, because it's way too easy for the government to disenfranchise groups my making petty or victimless things crimes and marginalising them.
More importantly, the Republican Party wills it
While it's most often mentioned that Nixon's war on drugs started as a tactic to suppress black voters, it's important to remember that it was also meant to suppress left wing voters, primarily those associated with the hippie movement. One is definitely more of a priority in the here and now than the other, but neither of these things have changed in the intervening sixty years
Private prisons were a mistake
sorry, did you mean "neglect of basic human rights for the sake of profit"?
Hate to toot my own horn (not really) but considering how successful the Norwegian, indeed Scandinavian prison system is at rehabilitating prisoners, I'm shocked at people still defending private prisons while laughing at ours because it has even the slightest hint of comfortable living for inmates. Somehow there are idiots, in this very forum in fact, who thinks that having basic comfort and amenities available for prisoners is somehow counter-productive to the rehabilitation process, all while defending the mentally grating concrete cells as a more valid option. because somehow, that's gonna make them upstanding citizens, bring subject to what pretty much can be described as a psychological hydraulic press.
All while the shitheads running the private prisons openly admits to cutting down on budgets, having judges send whoever the fuck to prison for even the smallest infraction, making life even more miserable because they want to save a pretty penny.
a strong agree with you. never privatise societal systems. it ends up as the ugly face of capitalism.
There's no guarantee that the state would treat the prisoners any better.
Pretty sure there is considering state owned prisons have no profit motive. Private prisons incentivize keeping as many people locked up under the cheapest conditions, with high recidivism rates.
and yet as the post you quoted points out, they consistently do. makes you think
Dude your only platitude is muh free market privatize everything to its most retarded logical conclusion. Most actual economists acknowledge free markets arent flawless systems and need outside forces to make up for the market failures and weaknesses. Why do you even believe in this, do you think it makes you smarter to be supposedly economically literate?
In Norway they work because of the Norway population has different criminals.
Oh no, I do believe prisons should be state owned, same for the police and the justice system.
It's just that 100% of prisons in Brazil are state owned and we treat prisoners like human garbage.
I just don't think that it would work like that for states or cities with gang problems.
But we can guarantee that private prisons are fucking terrible.
It's easier to fix that than to transfer the custody of all prisoners to the government, review all cases and reform all prisons or build new prisons.
You know the prison industry has a large lobbying effort in the US, they won't be reformed.
Putting profit before people is the problem. You can't address that while keeping the system privatised.
could there perhaps be a reason that crime in Norway is so vastly different from the US? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
I know but how would you even take back custody of the inmates with the lobbying? Or push for legislation to change imprisonment conditions?
In Virginia the governor tried to use his power to commute or pardon to blanket give all felons back their right to vote. The state supreme court shot it down saying the governor can only grant reprieve on an individual basis, so in Virginia you can file a request with the Secretary of the Commonwealth to have your rights restored via:
https://www.restore.virginia.gov/
America has a very "but it's mine" approach to their tax dollars. They're absolutely disgusted by the idea that their tax dollars go into helping some criminal, even if it is helping them get back into society.
Norway has 65 times less people in it.
and as such we have fewer prisons. you accommodate, you scale based on demand. what's your point?
Norway has 1.6% of the population and 10% of the land area but that doesn't mean very much. There are far more important factors to take into account such as the US having plenty of issues on a governmental level that don't actually address the root causes of crime. Most notably Norway focuses on rehabilitation to my knowledge. The US focuses on punitive measures. And on top of those punitive measures it then goes out of its way to make it very difficult for criminals to actually obtain jobs once they're out of jail which just pushes them back into committing more crime.
must be why Somalia is such a sunlit wonderland, being 25.3 times less populous than the US and all
The population difference means that implementing homogeneous solutions are harder. The solution would be to focus on education, but even that would not be enough to eliminate things like gang crime.
"We have a bigger population, better just throw up our hands instead of fixing clear problems with our systems"
A good general solution to the issue though: Don't make it more difficult for criminals to get jobs after getting out of jail. This isn't exactly a complicated concept but somehow a lot of people fail to understand this. People need jobs to get by. If they can't get jobs then they are more and more likely to resort to crime as time goes on. So the American system is a negative reinforcement loop that doesn't actually do a thing to help alleviate crime. This is a problem even in the better states such as mine which are already leaps and bounds better than the states where the problem is worst.
Why do you think gangs are a thing? Because for a lot of people, they're the only opportunity available to them and companionship and something to do. After school programs, rehabilitation efforts by getting prisoners into well paying jobs and housing and encouraging good behavior with positive feedback is how you end gang problems, along with giving better opportunity access to poor neighborhoods. Carrot > Stick.
Sure, lack of opportunity is a factor, but nowadays gangs exist because there's money to be made and there's people who can be seduced. How are you going to compete with criminals when their lifestyle is glorified?
You mean like it has been for, oh, I don't know, since the mid 1950's?
Gangsters have been glorified for that long. Yes.
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