The rationale behind it is generally that felons have abrogated their responsibility to society by committing especially heinous crimes, so therefore don't deserve to have a say in what that society does. In principle this actually makes a kind of sense to me. Someone who's killed another person (except by total accident) has shown a basic lack of judgment and caution; I don't want that person having a say in how the rest of us live our lives. Even if they've gone to prison -- hell, especially if they've gone to prison, because our prison system doesn't reform criminals, it makes them worse.
The problem is how felon disenfranchisement is implemented in practice. For one thing, the definition of a felony varies wildly across states, to the point that the crimes often aren't particularly heinous or society-damaging. In some states possessing a small amount of marijuana counts as a felony, while possessing an equal amount of cocaine (a much more damaging drug, but one used more often by the wealthy than the poor) does not. I used to live in a state where the theft or damage of any property over $250 counted as a felony. The law dated from way back when $250 was a lot of money, but these days $250 is nothing. If I borrow a friend's XBox and somehow screw it up, and that friend gets mad at me and calls the cops, I could lose my right to vote. Somehow that doesn't strike me as a heinous crime against society, yet that's how it works.
A bigger problem is that many of these laws were enacted after the passage of the 15th Amendment (the one giving blacks the right to vote), along with things like voter literacy tests, etc., as part of an overall strategy to reduce the potential power of the black vote. And areas of the country which keep these laws on the books tend to be those with a high population of black or poor citizens, where the wealthy whites in power feel threatened for control of the local government. So you usually see felon disenfranchisement in the same places where you see weird gerrymandering to increase the voting power of wealthy white neighborhoods over poor or PoC ones, etc.
Your friend is a good example of another part of the problem: misinformation. Many officials in the criminal justice system tell prisoners and ex-prisoners that they've lost the right to vote when this is in fact not true. Many prisoners don't know where to get correct information about this; they just believe the guards or parole officers (or conservative politicians) who tell them this crap, who might very well be misinformed themselves (or maliciously spreading disinformation).
no subject
The problem is how felon disenfranchisement is implemented in practice. For one thing, the definition of a felony varies wildly across states, to the point that the crimes often aren't particularly heinous or society-damaging. In some states possessing a small amount of marijuana counts as a felony, while possessing an equal amount of cocaine (a much more damaging drug, but one used more often by the wealthy than the poor) does not. I used to live in a state where the theft or damage of any property over $250 counted as a felony. The law dated from way back when $250 was a lot of money, but these days $250 is nothing. If I borrow a friend's XBox and somehow screw it up, and that friend gets mad at me and calls the cops, I could lose my right to vote. Somehow that doesn't strike me as a heinous crime against society, yet that's how it works.
A bigger problem is that many of these laws were enacted after the passage of the 15th Amendment (the one giving blacks the right to vote), along with things like voter literacy tests, etc., as part of an overall strategy to reduce the potential power of the black vote. And areas of the country which keep these laws on the books tend to be those with a high population of black or poor citizens, where the wealthy whites in power feel threatened for control of the local government. So you usually see felon disenfranchisement in the same places where you see weird gerrymandering to increase the voting power of wealthy white neighborhoods over poor or PoC ones, etc.
Your friend is a good example of another part of the problem: misinformation. Many officials in the criminal justice system tell prisoners and ex-prisoners that they've lost the right to vote when this is in fact not true. Many prisoners don't know where to get correct information about this; they just believe the guards or parole officers (or conservative politicians) who tell them this crap, who might very well be misinformed themselves (or maliciously spreading disinformation).