Felons Should Regain Voting Rights After Serving: Holder
Source: Bloomberg
By Del Quentin Wilber Feb 11, 2014 10:49 AM ET
Felons who have served their sentences shouldn’t be blocked from voting by state laws that disproportionately affect minorities, Attorney General Eric Holder said.
“These restrictions are not only unnecessary and unjust, they are also counterproductive,” Holder said in remarks today in Washington. “These laws deserve to be not only reconsidered but repealed.”
Holder’s push for restoring voting rights of felons is the latest change he’s seeking in long-standing criminal justice policies that he has said do nothing to make Americans safer and have steep costs.
Last year, he announced that low-level, nonviolent drug offenders would no longer be charged with federal crimes that impose strict mandatory minimum sentences. He has also pushed for increased availability of drug-treatment programs and changes in how officials handle former inmates to reduce the numbers who return to crime.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-11/felons-should-regain-voting-rights-after-serving-holder.html
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Scuba
(53,475 posts)
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)Gerhard28
(59 posts)....since our "justice" system puts so many of them in prison.
The recent reduction in sentences for crack cocaine to match powder cocaine will also help black people.
When I voted for Obama, I hoped he would do something to help black people, but these are the only two examples I can think of.
Can anyone think of others?
Gerhard28
(59 posts)A flurry of activity, or so it seems.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)
Orsino
(37,428 posts)No competent adult citizen should lose voting rights, ever. How the hell are we going to reform our incarceration culture when its victims are silenced permanently or for years at a time?
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)an ending.
Once you pay you debt to society, it should be over. It should not be a factor for employment. It should not be used to permanently subjugate a person who made a mistake or was forced to act desperately.
[Disclaimer: Not to be applied in all cases, ie sexual predators, crimes committed while armed, etc.]
Lost_Count
(555 posts)Would you want a thief to work at your bank?
A rapist to work at your women's gym?
Pedophiles at the local school?
The list goes on and on.
I'd be curious to know what percentage you think is in prison for a "mistake" or were forced into their crimes.
The price for these crimes extends beyond the formal justice system.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)imposed by a Judge. But, there is a large amount of De Facto vigilante punishment being dispensed by non-qualified lay persons. This illegal subliminal "cruel and unusual punishment" adversely affects millions of people, including a disproportionate amount of minorities. There should be legislation to protect the ones who paid their debt.
As I allowed for in my original answer, If a Judge declares someone a sexual predator or violent felon, then further restrictions on their lives are called for. On Edit.....I must have erased the small section about sexual predators and violent crimes.
Sorry about that.
RedstDem
(1,239 posts)how about change what constitutes a felony instead?
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)
petronius
(26,602 posts)
Heidi
(58,237 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)
toddwv
(2,830 posts)It's an all-to-common tactic. Purge a few tens of thousands, whose going to cross check if they have felonies or not?
CFLDem
(2,083 posts)Or at least that's how it supposed to be in America, the land of the free.
Only time prior time served should count is for repeat offenders or when people's security is at stake.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)They are disgusting.
I'd go further I think prisoners should also retain their voting rights.