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1 Erin Kelley, Racism & Felony Disenfranchisement: An Intertwined History 1 (2017)

handle is hein.brennan/rcfeldistwh0001 and id is 1 raw text is: BREN NAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE at New York Unvrst.Sho of Law Racism & Felony Disenfranchisement: An Intertwined History Ern' Kelly The United States stands alone among modern democracies in stripping voting rights from millions of citizens on the basis of criminal convictions.' Across the country, states impose varying felony disenfranchisement policies, preventing an estimated 6.1 million Americans from casting ballots.2 To give a sense of scope - this population is larger than the voting-eligible population of New Jersey.3 And of this total, nearly 4.7 million are people living in our communities - working, paying taxes, and raising families, all while barred from joining their neighbors at the polls.4 This widespread disenfranchisement disproportionately impacts people of color.5 One in every 13 voting-age African Americans cannot vote, a disenfranchisement rate more than four times greater than that of all other Americans.6 In four states, more than one in five black adults are denied their right to vote.7 Although the data on Latino disenfranchisement is less comprehensive, a 2003 study of ten states ranging in size from California to Nebraska found that nine of those states disenfranchise the Latino community at rates greater than the general population.8 While the origins of disenfranchisement can be traced back to early colonial law in North America, and even farther back to ancient Greece, the punishment was typically applied only in individual cases for particularly serious or elections-related crimes.9 It wasn't until the end of the Civil War and the expansion of suffrage to black men that felony disenfranchisement became a significant barrier to U.S. ballot boxes.10 At that point, two interconnected trends combined to make disenfranchisement a major obstacle for newly enfranchised black voters. First, lawmakers - especially in the South - implemented a slew of criminal laws designed to target black citizens. And nearly simultaneously, many states enacted broad disenfranchisement laws that revoked voting rights from anyone convicted of any felony. These two trends laid the foundation for the form of mass disenfranchisement seen in this country today. The End of the Civil War: An Increasingly Racist Criminal Justice System By the end of the Civil War, states were already incarcerating African Americans at a higher rate than whites. This disparity significantly worsened in the ensuing years, a fact well-documented in the South.12 Although outlawing slavery itself, the Thirteenth Amendment carved out an exception allowing states to impose involuntary servitude on those who were convicted of crimes.'3 Seeing an opportunity to sustain their crumbling economy, numerous Southern politicians quickly implemented new criminal laws that were essentially intended to criminalize black life, wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning author Douglas Blackmon.14 These ostensibly race-neutral

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