By: Marc H. Morial
President and CEO
National Urban League
Two developments this month concerning the impact of incarceration in American society—one in Iowa, the other in New York City—have underscored the steady, if still far too slow turning of the wheel away from America's foolish addiction to incarceration, and the great need for more and faster progress.
In Iowa, Governor Tom Vilsack announced he'll issue an executive order that will restore voting rights to all Iowans who've been convicted of a felony and have completed their sentences.
"When you've paid your debt to society, you need to be re-connected and re-engaged to society," the Governor said June 17. "The right to vote is the foundation of our government and serves as a symbol of opportunity for our citizens."
The policy, which Gov. Vilsack said he'll sign, appropriately, on July 4, transforms one of the nation's most restrictive felony disenfranchisement laws, making an estimated 80,000 ex-felons in the state eligible to vote.
Iowa follows its Plains neighbor, Nebraska, as states which this year significantly changed their voting rights policy for ex-felons. Nebraska repealed its law imposing a lifetime voting ban on ex-felons, replacing it with a two-year waiting period after release before voting rights are restored.
Thus, both join the move toward easing restrictions of state laws throughout the country which, by continuing to deprive those convicted of crimes of their right to vote once they've been released from incarceration violates two fundamental notions of American society: the right to vote, the basic building-block of citizenship in a democracy; and the idea that once a person convicted of a crime has served their sentence, they've paid their debt to society.
Iowa's action leaves four states—Alabama, Kentucky, Florida and Virginia—as the only states in the country which bar anyone convicted of a felony or aggravated misdemeanor from ever voting. Laws in the nation's other states differ in how and when they allow ex-felons to vote again.
This reform effort must be encouraged, for barring ex-felons from voting is counter-productive for both the individual and the society as a whole: studies show that ex-offenders who vote are less likely to re-commit crimes.
Given the hugely disproportionate number of African- and Latino-Americans who are incarcerated, there is, not surprisingly, a stunning and worrisome racial element to the felony disenfranchisement issue, too.
Nationally, of the 4.7 million people ineligible to vote because of felony convictions, 1.4 million are black men. In Iowa, where blacks constitute just two percent of the total population, blacks make up 19 percent of ex-felons who were denied the right to vote. Similar disparities can be found in most states.
The second incarceration-related development that occurred recently is equally important: a study of the job prospects in New York City for ex-offenders which found that white men with prison records fared far better in getting job offers than black men with prison records—and even than black men who had never been arrested.
The study, undertaken earlier this year, used "testers" who were equipped with similar resumes and trained to display to prospective employers similar personalities and interpersonal skills. The crime used was a drug offense which had brought an 18-month prison sentence. The jobs they pursued ranged across a spectrum, including deli clerks, cashiers, couriers and telemarketers.
Yet, according to the study's authors, professors Bruce Western, and Devah Pager, of Princeton University, black men whose job applications indicated a prison term were only one-third as likely as white men similarly situated to get positive responses. For every 10 white men without convictions who got at least a callback, 7 white men with convictions also did. However, for every 10 black men without criminal records who got callbacks, only 3 with them did.
Martin F. Horn, the New York City's corrections commissioner, and Patricia L. Gatling, chairwoman of the city's Commission on Human Rights, described the report as a call for action. Ms. Gatling said her office intends to work with employers who've hired ex-offenders in order to fashion efforts to eliminate the racial opportunity gap.
These two developments underscore the imperative that has led the National Urban League to plan for a national commission examining the successes and challenges facing black boys and men. Our commission will be a five-year effort that will recommend solutions to the problems afflicting black men in numerous areas, including health, education, employment, civil rights and civic engagement.
But a primary area of concentration will, of course, be black males' negative involvement with the criminal justice system (while not ignoring the fact that the negative involvement of women, particularly black women, has become increasingly more serious as well) and the extraordinary burden that imposes on African-American families and communities.
That burden, and the issue of felony disenfranchisement, too, is dramatic evidence that we ignore the need to equip ex-offenders with two fundamental rights of a democracy—the vote, and a job—at their peril, and ours.
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