By BitcoDavid

I’m old, but back when I wasn’t, we used to have these things called Civics classes. You may have heard of them. They were all the rage, before the No Child Left Standing law. One of the things stressed in these classes, was that felonies were not crimes against individual victims, but rather against society as a whole. The state of Such and Such versus So and So. We were also taught that once an offender paid that debt – owed to society as a whole – his slate was clean. He was, again, square with the house.

Well, many states have opted to disenfranchise ex-offenders from the voting rolls. All but 2 states disallow voting to convicted felons still serving sentences, or on parole. Nowhere in the Constitution does it state that felons are no longer citizens of the United States.

This idea that we should be penalized for life, and cede all the benefits of American Citizenship for a single misstep, is not only unconstitutional and in direct opposition to the tenets of American Jurisprudence – it’s draconian and cruel.

This PDF embed came from the Sentencing Project, and was brought to my attention by PrisonMovement.

BitcoDavid is a blogger and a blog site consultant. In former lives, he was an audio engineer, a videographer, a teacher – even a cab driver. He is an avid health and fitness enthusiast and a Pro/Am boxer. He has spent years working with diet and exercise to combat obesity and obesity related illness.

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