Felony Disenfranchisement Bars 1 in 13 Black People From Voting

Via Pixabay

Abeni Jones
October 15, 2019

A first-of-its kind Presidential candidate forum hopes to highlight the issue of mass incarceration in America and the impact it has on our society and culture - especially the impact it has on people and communities after they’ve left prisons and jails.

More than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and more than 5 million are under some form of correctional control. The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world.

In recent years those numbers have been reduced by as much as 10% over the last 10 years - especially due to activist pressure that led to reforms under President Obama and encouraged President Trump to sign the First Step Act. But, according to Nazgol Ghandnoosh, senior research analyst at the Sentencing Project, "Some of those policies were reversed under the Trump administration," so it’s unclear if the reduction will continue.

The reduction in incarceration is seen as a good sign, and the Department of Justice promotes it as a measure of the effectiveness of its policies. It is true, however, that the incarceration rate has increased by almost 600% over the last 40 years, and a 10% reduction is very small in comparison.

Many of those incarcerated are Black Americans, who are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites. Non-Black people of color are also incarcerated at much higher rates than whites.

Mass incarceration has far-reaching effects for American society and culture. “There are more than 40,000 collateral consequences,” explains Julia Felsenthal, paraphrasing Senator Cory Booker, for people even after they’ve left prisons and jails.

She laid out some of them: “decreased access to social services (food stamps, public housing) and educational and job opportunities, loss of ability to serve on juries and, in some cases, to participate in the democratic process (in Alabama, for example, nearly 30 percent of the black male population has permanently lost the right to vote).”

More than 6.1 million Americans have lost the right to vote because of a felony conviction. 1 in every 13 Black people has lost their right to vote for this reason. 

These effects, and the criminal justice system that incarcerates so many people in the first place, will be front and center at the first ever Formerly Incarcerated People’s Presidential Forum, set to be hosted on Oct. 28 in Philadelphia.

Organized by Voters Organized to Educate, Justice Votes 2020: A Presidential Town Hall will be run by and for formerly incarcerated people, and will give the 2020 Presidential candidates a forum to discuss their plans for criminal justice and prison reform.

The forum’s organizers hope to put formerly incarcerated people, and the issues that affect them, front and center with the 2020 candidates. According to DeAnna Hoskins, president of JustLeadershipUSA, “What history has taught us is that no movement has been successful [until] those most impacted are put in a position of leadership to lead the way out of that situation.”

We have a quick favor to ask:

PushBlack is a nonprofit dedicated to raising up Black voices. We are a small team but we have an outsized impact:

  • We reach tens of millions of people with our BLACK NEWS & HISTORY STORIES every year.
  • We fight for CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM to protect our community.
  • We run VOTING CAMPAIGNS that reach over 10 million African-Americans across the country.

And as a nonprofit, we rely on small donations from subscribers like you.

With as little as $5 a month, you can help PushBlack raise up Black voices. It only takes a minute, so will you please ?

Share This Article: