/* Written 7:41 AM  Oct 23, 1998 by [email protected] in pn.alerts */
/* ---------- "Felon Laws Bar 3.9 Million American" ---------- */

(Washington, D.C., October 22, 1998) � A stunning proportion of black
men in the United States will not be able to vote in the November
elections because they have been convicted of a felony, according to a
new report released today by Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing
Project. In seven states, a staggering one in four black men is
permanently disenfranchised. In two states, Alabama and Florida, the
ratio is one in three. If current trends continue, in a dozen states as
many as 30-40% of the next generation of black men will permanently lose
the right to vote. 

Almost every state in the U.S. denies prisoners the right to vote. But
fourteen states bar criminal offenders from voting even after they have
finished their sentences. In these states, over one million ex-offenders
are permanently disenfranchised. 

Any felony can trigger disenfranchisement. A first-time young offender
who pleads guilty to a single drug sale and is placed on probation can
lose the right to vote for a lifetime. 

"These people have paid their debt to society. It makes no sense to turn
them into political outcasts," said Jamie Fellner, associate counsel at
the New York-based Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. "No
other country in the world takes away the right to vote for life." 

"Fifty years after the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement, it is
tragic that every day more black citizens lose their voting rights,"
said Marc Mauer, report co-author and assistant director of The
Sentencing Project, based in Washington. "This is not just a criminal
justice issue, but one of basic democracy." 

Nationwide, a total of 1.4 million black men�thirteen percent of all
black men�cannot vote either because they are permanently
disenfranchised ex-offenders, or because they are convicted felons
currently in prison, on probation or on parole. The number of
disenfranchised adults of all races is 3.9 million, three-quarters of
whom are not in prison but are on probation or parole or have completed
their sentences. 

The report, Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement
Laws in the United States, is the first-ever state-by-state analysis of
the impact of felony disenfranchisement laws. 

The rate of disenfranchisement has grown higher in recent years as a
result of harsh drug laws and mandatory sentencing requirements, which
have sharply increased the number of offenders behind bars. 

Disenfranchised ex-offenders can seek a gubernatorial pardon to restore
their voting rights, but few have the information or resources needed to
do so. In Virginia, for example, there are more than 200,000
ex-offenders, but in 1996 and 1997, only 404 regained their voting
rights. 

Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project call for an end to
permanent disenfranchisement. They also urge Congress and state
legislatures to ensure citizens convicted of a felony retain their
ability to vote unless disenfranchisement is part of a court-imposed
sentence for specified serious crimes. In addition, the two
organizations urge the United Nations Human Rights Committee to address
U.S. criminal disenfranchisement laws in light of international human
rights treaties prohibiting unreasonable or racially discriminatory
restrictions on the right to vote. 

For More details please visit Human Rights Watch Web site at:

http://www.hrw.org

LOSING THE VOTE 
The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States

is available on-line on HRW Website at:

http://www.hrw.org/reports98/vote/