In the U.S., the intent of incarceration seems to be punitive rather than any attempt at rehabilitation.
The system is now geared toward making it almost impossible for an individual to serve their sentence then return to society and become productive. One they get sucked into the system it's nearly impossible for them to get out. So, if you agree w/ Holder or not on this issue the larger concern is the creation of a system that fosters disenfranchisement and the perpetuation of the criminal cycle.
my only beef is with parading the AG out as a political operative, but to the point you raise, can you find a link to any article showing that a convicted felon committed a crime upon release because he/she was denied the right to vote? How about a potential employer deciding not to hire a released felon because he/she couldn't vote, have a link to one of those articles? My guess is that the "stigma" comes with being convicted of committing a crime NOT losing the ability to vote.
I think that would be a hard experiment to conduct, isolating and correlating the right to vote with committing a crime, so I don't think there's any cut-and-dry data with with that,but what I think what comes with having your voting rights denied is this feeling of "I will never again be a player within the system, so I'm f*cked anyways, might as well sell dope"a lot of these guys got arrested when they were young and dumb, and many come around to "see the light" so to speak - I think allowing those guys to feel like "they're back on the team" after they do their time, it will reduce recidivism also, everybody's got their own opinions of things, the AG no different, and with the 24-hour news clusterf*ck we've got nowadays, you bet you're going to hear about,doesn't mean every AG in the past hasn't also had their own views about things - they just weren't crammed down your eyeballs like they are nowdon't think he's parading as a democrat operativethink he's just a dude with an opinion
In the U.S., the intent of incarceration seems to be punitive rather than any attempt at rehabilitation.
I think that has a lot to do with cost of actual rehabilitation.
The system is now geared toward making it almost impossible for an individual to serve their sentence then return to society and become productive. One they get sucked into the system it's nearly impossible for them to get out. So, if you agree w/ Holder or not on this issue the larger concern is the creation of a system that fosters disenfranchisement and the perpetuation of the criminal cycle.
my only beef is with parading the AG out as a political operative, but to the point you raise, can you find a link to any article showing that a convicted felon committed a crime upon release because he/she was denied the right to vote? How about a potential employer deciding not to hire a released felon because he/she couldn't vote, have a link to one of those articles? My guess is that the "stigma" comes with being convicted of committing a crime NOT losing the ability to vote.
I think that would be a hard experiment to conduct, isolating and correlating the right to vote with committing a crime, so I don't think there's any cut-and-dry data with with that,but what I think what comes with having your voting rights denied is this feeling of "I will never again be a player within the system, so I'm f*cked anyways, might as well sell dope"a lot of these guys got arrested when they were young and dumb, and many come around to "see the light" so to speak - I think allowing those guys to feel like "they're back on the team" after they do their time, it will reduce recidivism also, everybody's got their own opinions of things, the AG no different, and with the 24-hour news clusterf*ck we've got nowadays, you bet you're going to hear about,doesn't mean every AG in the past hasn't also had their own views about things - they just weren't crammed down your eyeballs like they are nowdon't think he's parading as a democrat operativethink he's just a dude with an opinion
I don't disagree about the psychological benefit of having voting rights restored, but the AG links the voting rights directly to crime, doesn't he? I could've read it wrong. Also, an article like this does not come from someone catching the AG at the local café and asking his opinion. He is being used INTENTIONALLY to further a political agenda, it's an announcement not a comment, right?"Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for an end to state laws that bar convicted felons from voting, even after they have served their sentences."This is with the AP story:
In the U.S., the intent of incarceration seems to be punitive rather than any attempt at rehabilitation.
The US system is flawed in many ways. The focus of the system should be two-fold: rehabilitation of "nonviolent" criminals and incarceration of "violent" criminals. Everyone can debate what constitutes a "violent" criminal and a "non-violent" criminal, but while that debate is going on there is an entire class of crimes that most would likely agree are violent (murder etc.) and there is an entire class of crimes that most would agree are nonviolent (e.g., bust for minor pot possession).Nowhere near a perfect solution. There's gray area between the extremes, but that just means we should work from the extremes in.
