Reveals how state felony disenfranchisement laws are undermining American democracy. State felony disenfranchisement laws that date back to Reconstruction fracture the American electorate into “those who are citizens in the fullest sense of the term,” in Aristotle’s words, and those who, deprived of political voice, still have the status of slaves. The existence of this "invisible constituency"―approximately 5.8 million or 2.5% of the national voting population―who live alongside the “ruling” enfranchised electorate―is one of the scandals of our generation. In this second edition of Felony Disenfranchisement in America, Katherine Irene Pettus draws on philosophy, history, law, and punishment theory to make the compelling argument that state disenfranchisement policies have collective moral and political significance that transcends the personal tragedy of being legally deprived of full citizenship status. Pettus argues that the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and racially unbalanced disenfranchisement rates distort and disfigure the body politic as a whole, and undermine the legitimacy of the domestic and foreign policies promulgated by our elected representatives.

Felony Disenfranchisement in America, Second Edition: Historical Origins, Institutional Racism, and Modern Consequences (Horizon)

Politics & Social Sciences

Pettus, Katherine Irene

Social Sciences

State University of New York Press

Pettus traces felony disenfranchisement from Athenian democracy to the present. She analyzes the contradiction between present state disenfranchisement practices and voting rights jurisprudence and concludes that American citizens lack equal voting rights: the right to vote for national representatives is trumped by state laws that define felonies and the criteria for disenfranchisement. The majority of the disenfranchised today are African-American, and most felony convictions are drug-related. Nonetheless, drug use and trafficking are equally distributed across demographic groups. The current variation in state laws disenfranchising felons, the lack of standard definitions of felonies, and the racial disparities within the criminal justice system reproduce many of the inequalities of the colonial America, despite the development of federal citizenship and voting rights law since the end of the Civil War.

Felony Disenfranchisement in America: Historical Origins, Institutional Racism, and Modern Consequences

Politics & Government

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Books by Pettus, Katherine Irene