Should a conviction still be allowed to hold ex-felons back?

[Kevin]

Again, (shocker) I am going to take the minority position here, which is more than likely the majority position outside of GC.

Felons are felons for a reason. They did something bad and are branded as felons--something which is a part of their paying a debt to society.

As for voting, I have no problem discriminating against felons. By committing a felony, they forfeit their right to participate fully in it. They get no sympathy from me. How not being able to vote holds them back as some have suggested is an interesting concept. How does that hold them back? By creating a sub-class which doesn't have to be pandered to by politicians? Do you want your politicians pandering to felons? Not me.

As far as hiring practices go, every employer who places an employee into a situation where trust is a factor has a strong interest in knowing that individual's background. To that end, that employer needs to be able to know whether it's hiring former felons. Felons are more likely to steal and get an employer sued, so a smart employer absolutely will discriminate here. It's a matter of self-preservation. For a small business, if you hire a known violent felon who then assaults and injures a customer, that could very easily mean bankruptcy.

And for every felon who is discriminated against, a non-felon gets that job--someone who hasn't strayed from the straight and narrow, or at least hasn't been caught.

[33girl]

Well, if we're going to start saying who does and doesn't have the right to vote, I say we keep the idiotic women who use abortion as birth control out of the voting booth. They're not smart enough to take a pill or stick a diaphragm in, why on earth should they have the right to vote? (No, I don't mean women who have an abortion because of an unplanned pregnancy, I mean those who get abortions over and over again and NEVER use birth control.)

Obviously this will never happen, but that's how silly the not-being-allowed-to-vote thing sounds to me. I honestly never knew that, and think it's ridiculous. If you've done your time and paid your debt, you should be allowed to vote. (Not to mention I'm going to wager that there are former prisoners who are HELLA more informed about the issues/candidates up for election than the average voter.)

If you're going to make a person keep paying and keep paying even after they finish a sentence that society has deemed "payment" why even let them out of jail in the first place? The reason the recidivism rate is so high is because we make it so hard for convicts to reassimilate into society. If we as a society don't believe that people can be "rehabilitated" we should probably stop playing that we do.

[sweetmagnolia]

Originally Posted by Kevin

As for voting, I have no problem discriminating against felons. By committing a felony, they forfeit their right to participate fully in it. They get no sympathy from me. How not being able to vote holds them back as some have suggested is an interesting concept. How does that hold them back? By creating a sub-class which doesn't have to be pandered to by politicians? Do you want your politicians pandering to felons? Not me.

It holds them back because they have no say in how their county, state or country is governed. It'd be one thing if this was the case of a single man, or a handful of ex-felons, but the amount of ex-felons in a state like California or New York could change the outcome of elections.

Again, from the Washington Post article:

"...last year Alabama Republican Party Chairman Marty Connors stated a bald truth: "As frank as I can be," he said, "we're opposed to [restoring voting rights] because felons don't tend to vote Republican." He is right: People with low incomes, low education or minority status -- all benchmarks of convict populations -- vote Democratic 65 to 90 percent of the time.

Another bald fact: Many disenfranchisement laws trace to the mid-1800s, when they were crafted to bar blacks with even minor criminal records from polls. Today this poisonous legal lineage tells not only in the South, which retains the most repressive statutes, but in states such as New York, where ex-parolees theoretically get their rights back but in reality encounter local election officials who demand discharge papers that don't exist, give misleading information and find other reasons to turn them away. A class-action lawsuit in New York charges that this system bars so many voters in high-crime neighborhoods that the districts effectively have lost their voice. In Florida, where many felons are barred forever unless the governor personally decides otherwise, 8 percent of adults cannot vote -- including one in four black men."

[preciousjeni]

Originally Posted by Kevin

As far as hiring practices go, every employer who places an employee into a situation where trust is a factor has a strong interest in knowing that individual's background. To that end, that employer needs to be able to know whether it's hiring former felons.

That's what background checks are for. There's no need to ask for this kind of information on the application though.

Felons are more likely to steal and get an employer sued, so a smart employer absolutely will discriminate here.

Show me the stats. I would have agreed with you if you had said felons who are not gainfully employed are more likely to steal and so forth.

Originally Posted by DrPhil

That's because the criminal justice system and general public are incapacitation and retribution oriented and not rehabilitation and reintegration oriented...Society doesn't want to address the socioeconomic issues that lead some to commit instrumental crimes to make money in the first place, and Americans don't want to address how to reintegrate people into society and reduce recidivism...A smart America would see how investing in OUR future isn't synonymous with giving offenders a free ride.

I dedicate my next five heartbeats to you. You're awesome.

Originally Posted by 33girl

If every place you went to get a job immediately trashed your application, don't you think that would make you inclined to just say "fuck it" and find food/clothing/$$/shelter by any means necessary?

Oh, but that will NEVER happen to you, so it's a moot point.

Of course, because only guilty people go to prison. Oh...wait.

Originally Posted by sweetmagnolia

Many disenfranchisement laws trace to the mid-1800s, when they were crafted to bar blacks with even minor criminal records from polls. Today this poisonous legal lineage tells not only in the South, which retains the most repressive statutes, but in states such as New York, where ex-parolees theoretically get their rights back but in reality encounter local election officials who demand discharge papers that don't exist, give misleading information and find other reasons to turn them away. A class-action lawsuit in New York charges that this system bars so many voters in high-crime neighborhoods that the districts effectively have lost their voice. In Florida, where many felons are barred forever unless the governor personally decides otherwise, 8 percent of adults cannot vote -- including one in four black men."

Thumbs up.