Do Felony Disenfranchisement Laws (De)Mobilize? A Case of Surrogate Participation

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 1523-1527 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Anoll ◽  
Mackenzie Israel-Trummel
Keyword(s):  
Felony Disenfranchisement

Neighborhoods and Felony Disenfranchisement: The Case of New York City

2020 ◽  
pp. 107808742092152
Author(s):  
Kevin Morris
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Indirect Effects ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
Geographic Concentration ◽  
Black Neighborhoods ◽  
Mayoral Election ◽  
Felony Disenfranchisement

Over the past two decades, scholars have sought to estimate the direct and indirect effects of felony disenfranchisement on political representation. This literature, however, has often overlooked both the geographic concentration of communities impacted by overincarceration and the low propensity to vote exhibited by individuals convicted of felony crimes. In this article, I redefine “lost voters” as disenfranchised individuals with a history of participating in elections. I map these individuals to their preincarceration addresses and use multiple approaches to explore whether their home neighborhoods turned out at lower rates than other neighborhoods in the 2017 New York City (NYC) mayoral election. I find that neighborhoods that were home to lost voters turned out at substantially lower rates than similar neighborhoods, and that Black neighborhoods are particularly impacted by the spillover effects of disenfranchisement. These indirect effects of the incarceration of would-be voters may have serious implications for the representation of impacted neighborhoods.

The Dark Side of American Liberalism and Felony Disenfranchisement

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 1035-1054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Fainsod Katzenstein ◽  
Leila Mohsen Ibrahim ◽  
Katherine D. Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Citizenship ◽  
American Liberalism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
Felony Disenfranchisement

What can the disenfranchisement of people convicted of felonies tell us about the character of American liberalism? Felony disenfranchisement reveals a dark face of American liberal democracy that is distinct from two more familiar narratives: the Tocquevillean story of a triumphal and inclusionary liberalism and the “multiple traditions” account proposed by Rogers Smith that sees liberalism battling with racial and other exclusionary ideologies. The history of felony exclusion points to a third perspective: a hyphenate American liberalism (liberal-ascription; liberal-republicanism) in which an exclusionary politics is embedded within liberalism itself. We develop this argument with specific reference to the ways in which liberalism as an abstraction is reflected in concrete advocacy debates over reform, in court decisions, and in the legislative domain. We identify three strands of liberal argumentation—the conceptualization of discrimination that relies on intentionality; the paradigmatic liberal belief in the social contract; and the liberal-republican adherence to norms of individual responsibility. The three strands show how the purportedly universal and impartial liberal embrace of individuality, contract, and responsibility, that ostensibly transcends the ascriptive barriers of birth has nevertheless fostered laws and policies that buttress the boundaries of an exclusionary American citizenship.

“They Are All She Had”

2019 ◽  
pp. 186-210
Author(s):  
Pippa Holloway
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African American Men ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Incarcerated Women ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Formerly Incarcerated ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Suffrage Movement ◽  
Felony Disenfranchisement ◽  
Formerly Incarcerated Women

The chapter offers a unique exploration of the struggle for women’s suffrage by analyzing how formerly incarcerated women responded to the concept of infamy, the legal category of the loss of citizenship rights. The chapter highlights the tension between the South’s disenfranchisement practices and the concurrent demands of the suffrage movement by analyzing petitions to regain citizenship rights for female felons. These petitions come from a variety of states, including one from Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokolani alongside many other unrecognized women. Whereas most discussions of felony disenfranchisement have focused on African American men, this chapter uncovers a previously unwritten history that connects the struggle for suffrage with the struggle for voting rights among formerly incarcerated women. Rather than relegate these women as politically voiceless and nonhistorical actors, however, the essay instead recognizes convicted women as political actors willing to fight for their full citizenship rights as individuals inspired by the suffrage movement but without the organizational movement behind their individual efforts.

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