Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy5.4 million Americans--1 in every 40 voting age adults-- are denied the right to participate in democratic elections because of a past or current felony conviction. In several American states, 1 in 4 black men cannot vote due to a felony conviction. In a country that prides itself on universal suffrage, how did the United States come to deny a voice to such a large percentage of its citizenry? What are the consequences of large-scale disenfranchisement--both for election outcomes, and for public policy more generally? Locked Out exposes one of the most important, yet little known, threats to the health of American democracy today. It reveals the centrality of racial factors in the origins of these laws, and their impact on politics today. Marshalling the first real empirical evidence on the issue to make a case for reform, the authors' path-breaking analysis will inform all future policy and political debates on the laws governing the political rights of criminals. |
Contents
| 3 | |
1 Foundations | 11 |
2 The Racial Origins of Felon Disenfranchisement with Angela Behrens | 41 |
3 The Disenfranchised Population | 69 |
4 The Contemporary Disenfranchisement Regime | 95 |
5 Political Attitudes Voting and Criminal Behavior | 113 |
Felons Speak Out with Angela Behrens | 137 |
7 The Impact of Disenfranchisement on Political Participation | 165 |
Other editions - View all
Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy Jeff Manza,Christopher Uggen Limited preview - 2008 |
Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy Jeff Manza,Christopher Uggen Limited preview - 2006 |
Locked Out:Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy: Felon ... Jeff Manza,Christopher Uggen No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
2000 presidential election African American American political appendix table arrest attitudes ballot changes chapter chisement citizens citizenship Civil Death civil rights clemency counterfactual Court criminal justice system criminal offenders Criminology democracy Democratic Department of Justice disen disenfran disenfranchised felons disenfranchised population drug electoral eligible enfranchisement estimate ex-felons example felon disenfranchisement laws felon population felon voting felony conviction Fifteenth Amendment Florida former felons Fourteenth Amendment franchise Government Printing Office important incarceration rates individuals inmates jail Jesse Ventura Keyssar Law Review ment Minnesota models nonwhite parole party percent Percentage political participation Princeton prison probation probationers Public Opinion punishment questions race racial threat recent recidivism reintegration reported Republican respondents restoring voting rights right to vote Sentencing Project Sidney Verba social Sociology state’s statistically suffrage survey tion turnout rates U.S. Department U.S. Senate U.S. Senate Elections United universal suffrage University Press voters Washington York
Popular passages
Page 4 - No class of men can, without insulting their own nature, be content with any deprivation of their rights. We want it, again, as a means for educating our race. Men are so constituted that they derive their conviction of their own possibilities largely from the estimate formed of them by others. If nothing is expected of a people, that people will find it difficult to contradict that expectation.