Introduction
Felon disenfranchisement cases have characterized the history of the United States since 1965. By noting that America advocates for universal human rights including voting rights, several states have been concerned about the continued growth of the number of felon convicts and ex-convicts.
According to the US Department of Justice, by 2003, there were about 4.7 million felon ex-convicts in the United States who had been disenfranchised (2003, p.10). In the societies whose democracies are rights-based, punishment for crimes committed by convicts is enhanced through curtailing some fundamental rights of people including rights of association and travelling.
When felony convicts’ rights including voting rights are eroded, their rehabilitation process is impaired since they may perceive themselves as having lesser equal rights in comparison with other people who have not committed felony crimes. This position is held by Siegel (2011) who argues that, after the passing of 1965(PL.89-110) voting rights act, the denial of voting rights “undermines the democratic process and impedes rehabilitation thus debilitating both communities and individuals” (p.89).
In this context, felony convicts may develop psychological challenges that may impede their capacity to fit well in the society by the mere perception of denial of voting rights. It is hypothesized in the proposal that guaranteeing suffrage rights to felon convicts may help in improving their psychological health. The research focuses on evaluation of this hypothesis to establish the link between the perceptions of felony on their human rights and their rehabilitation process.
Literature Review
Through the provisions of 14th amendment of the US constitution, states are mandated to make laws that deny both inmates and felons their voting rights. In California, disenfranchisement laws stipulate that all adults who are convicted for felony crimes and or held in both paroles and prisons lose suffrage rights until their jail terms lapses (Siegel, 2011). Such persons consist of more than 4.7 million people who do not enjoy their voting rights in the US (U.S Department of Justice, 2003).
This case is not simplistic since it does not just amount to saying that robbers, murderers, and rapists do not have suffrage rights. Acts of felony extend beyond these crimes to include other crimes whose penalties are serving a jail term of more than one year (US Department of Justice, 2003). This issue raises the question of the impacts of felony convictions on people and or how the convictions make people alter the manner they perceive their citizenship rights.
When America was founded, legal frameworks only gave people who owned land a privilege of participating in political processes through voting (Siegel, 2011). Since then, the electorate has been expanded to encompass people who do not own property, women, blacks, and even Hispanics among other people who constitute the American diversity. Only felons and persons under the age of 18 years are not permitted to vote (Grady, 2012, p. 445).
Does it then imply that voting is a privilege as opposed to being a right? Are felons lesser human beings not worth the citizenship fundamental privileges? Gabbling with these questions has resorted to several scholarly studies being completed on the impacts of denial of fundamental citizenship rights once people are convicted for felony. Some states have been altering their law to allow ex-felons to be permitted to vote. McMiller (2008) argues that, in Connecticut, this alteration was led by several campaigns, which lasted for 7 years.
The campaigns sort to alter voting right laws. In fact, “the measure, signed into law by then governor John G. Rowland, a Republican, made Connecticut one of the first states to successfully and significantly alter its voter eligibility law in the aftermath of the controversial 2000 presidential election” (McMiller , 2008, p.645). Since 2001, several states have also been restoring voting rights to felony convicts.
By noting that some states have been reviewing their laws to permit ex-felons to vote subject to no subsequent charge with felony crimes, Haselswerd (2009) sought to empirically study the differences in turnout of ex-felons who had their suffrage rights restored.
The research formed an attempt to make approximations of turnout of ex-felons to participate in voting using statistical models as opposed to through deployment of government records. Statistically, Haselswerdt (2009) approximated that about 25 to 35 percent of ex-felons would participate in voting during federal elections.
In the study, “Six-hundred-sixty recently released ex-felons in Erie County in New York who would have been legally eligible to register and vote in 2004 or 2005 were compared with data from the Erie County Board of Elections to determine whether they registered and voted in either 2004 or 2005” (p.262).
The results of the study indicated that about 5 percent of ex-felons participated in either 2005 or 2004 elections. This result raises queries on the impacts of conviction with felony on perception of people’s fundamental rights including voting rights.
Do felons perceive themselves as not appropriate to participate in political process by the mere fact that they committed crimes? Do felony charges mean that people end up making people perceiving themselves as being in appropriate in the society? Inspired by Haselswerd’s (2009) findings, it sounds imperative to study how felons think the society looks at them and or how this perception helps to construct their decisions to engage in social and political affairs of the societies in which they live in including engaging in voting processes.
In a different empirical research on ex-felon turnout to participate in voting, Burch (2011) estimated party registration and turnout rates of 2008 general election in Michigan, Missouri, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia.
The findings of the study indicated much low turnout rates of ex-felons in comparison to approximations made by government records. In particular, Burch (2011) found out that, although the variation of turn out rates varied with respect to states, it averaged at about 22.2 percent in 2008 across all the states studied. The author recorded low turnout rates for first time convicts.
Randle (2007) may provide possible explanations of the low voting turnout among ex-felons empirically found by Haselswerd (2009) and Burch (2011). She argues that felon disenfranchisement (FD) policies makes ex-felons to perceive themselves as having the inability to make sound political decisions through over emphasis on the incapacity of felons to make sound decision that are good for the general society in the fear that felons may vote for policies advocating for excessive lenient penal.
However, Randle (2007) maintains that this fear is inappropriate since high probabilities exist that ex-felons are drawn from societies, which have low voting turnout. The author further argues that criminals are not interested in participating in political processes since they have low interests in politics (Randle, 2007, p.501).
This position is significant in the context of the current research since it is crucial to establish how conviction with felony crimes influences people’s views about the roles of politics in the society. Although the impact of denial of voting rights is purposely meant to affect the felons by blocking them from participating in the political process, with regard to Bowers and Preuhs (2009), the impacts of denial of suffrage rights extend further to include other people who are not targeted by felon disfranchisement policies (p.722).
Due to disproportionate number of groups of people who are impacted by the FD laws, as may be evidenced by more people of a particular ethnic or racial community being held behind bars in the United States than others, engagement of such communities in the political process is impaired negatively.
Bowers and Preuhs (2009) conducted a research to verify the above claim. The researchers sought to make verification for various hypotheses related to the roles that are played by socialization process in influencing people at individual level in engagement in politics.
Unlike the approach deployed by Haselswerdt (2009), Bowers and Preuhs (2009) used “multilevel modeling and two separate individual-level data sets of those registered to vote to examine the effect of FD laws on the probability of voting” (p.722). Their results indicated that FD laws had negative impacts on participation in voting exercise among blacks in comparison to whites.
Burch (2011) reports a similar finding by indicating, “In North Carolina and Florida, two states for which the data are available, party registration varies by race” (p.699). Consequently, it is arguable that people register in political parties based on the extents to which they think the issues that affect them more will be addressed. One of such intriguing issues is the denial of suffrage rights on accounts of having being convicted for felony.
Siegel (2011) informs that, by the size of population of the races in the US, the percentage population of blacks in prison is more than the percentage of whites. Hence, black non-felons seem likely more impacted by FD laws by virtue of the fact that more of their people are facing the consequences of FD laws.
In this extent, the results of Burch (2011) are significant in the current research since they indicated that, in case ex-felons and felons are eliminated from the voting populations, it is likely that political socialization process will be impacted.
Methodology
Participants
This study targets the population of people implicated with felony crimes and people in the society considered as being offended in California. A part from helping to form the study control group, the public (the offended), is the one whom their perception about convicts results in making convicts develop psychological problems due to the manner in which they embrace both convicts and ex-convicts in the society.
The justification of denial of voting rights is considered in the research as being based on these perceptions. Thus, the public through their opinions is an essential participant of the research. The sample of the study will comprise 120 convicts of felony crimes and 300 people derived from the society within where the convicts live. Convenience sampling technique will be deployed to arrive at the sample of the study.
To make sure that the sample will be balanced, the felony convicts recruited for the study will be drawn from across the gender divide and social economic status. In the establishment of the sample size, it is critical to minimize the individual differences effects. In this extent, individual participants of the study will have a random assignment of an equally sized treatment group arrived at by deployment of a random sample assignment table.
Material
In the collection of the data on the perceptions of people on the impacts of denial of voting rights on how convicts of felony crimes perceive themselves as different from the rest of the people in the community they live in, and to ease the analysis of the data, two options for data collection will be used.
For this purpose, questionnaires are provided for No or Yes responses. Consequently, a questionnaire is provided asking the participants to provide response on whether denial of voting rights influences the way they perceive themselves in the society.
To ensure that the participants do not have prior information on the questionnaires, the questionnaires are not meant for take home. However, they are based on the facts and statistics reflecting the magnitude of the problems of denial of suffrage rights for felony convicts across the United States. This strategy allows the participants to give responses not only based on the perceptions but also on behalf of the other people who have their voting rights eroded upon finding themselves engaged in felony acts.
The dependent variable is the perceptions of people on how their roles on the society are impacted by erosion of their suffrage rights once they are charged with felony crimes. The independent variable is the felony crimes. The questionnaire is designed to be objective.
The participants are required to provide information on how they consider denial of voting rights to have influenced their fits with the society in which they belong. Pilot study will also be conducted to determine the validity and reliability of the experimental study conducted. For pilot testing, Cranach’s alpha, coefficients of test-retest reliability would have to be calculated once pilot testing is conducted.
Procedure
Participants are drawn from the areas where felony convicts are serving their sentences across the state of California. Since the aim of the research is to determine the psychological impacts of denial of voting rights amongst the participants in an attempt to how they affect their rehabilitations process, no information is provided about the purpose of the study to the participants.
Since the convicts are not expected to have writing materials, the researcher starts by handing over the material including questionnaires. The questionnaires are meant to provide response to whether the participants feel that they will be the same people they were before once they complete their sentences. If the answer is yes, they will be required to provide information on whether erosion of their voting rights would influence the way they value themselves in the societies where they live.
Additional space is provided for the participants to provide more information on how denial of some of their rights including voting rights impacts the way they relate with the people they have been very close to in the society. During the pilot test, the following questions are administered
On Justice
- To the convicts: Which of the following do you consider as the main purpose of prison? 1= rehabilitation to avoid future related crimes; 0= provide the rest of the community with learning examples of the impacts of committing felony.
- To the public: When do you think felony convicts should have their rights including voting rights taken away? 1=after and before rehabilitations; 0= before rehabilitations.
On Sex crimes
- To the convict: Do you feel that people in the society will trust you when you are around people who made you convicted to having violated their sexual rights? Yes= 1; No=0.
- To the public: Do you think that people implicated with sex crimes should be allowed to vote or not. Yes=1; No=0.
On the Impacts of engagement in the felony crime
- To the convicts: Do you consider yourself equal to other people in the society who have never been convicted of felony crime? 1=yes; No=0
- To the public: Do you think that taking away voting rights from felony convicts amounts to discrimination? 1=Yes; No=0.
Data Analysis Plan
Since the data collected is essentially qualitative, the researchers plan to classify data in terms of the percentages. For instance, the percentages of those who believe that the denial of suffrage rights is discriminating the felony convicts and hence amounting to perceptions of necessity to maintain low social profiles in the society after completion of one’s sentence is calculated.
Depending on the percentages, discrimination will be analyzed based on the results of how convicts perceive themselves as being equal or not with the rest of the members of the society. The size of the effect of denial of voting rights among felony convicts is calculated based on percentages of variance, standard deviations, and mean of the data collected.
Discussion
If the results of the study depict significant psychological effects of denial of human rights including participation in political processes such as voting rights, the results show the necessity for changing laws to accord the felons voting rights in the effort to ensure they rehabilitate fast and fit well within the society once they have finished their sentences. In the interpretation of results, the limitations of the study will be put into perspective. The study will be conducted within California. Therefore, the results are valid for only this state.
Consequently, extending the result to other states involves generalization hence introducing generalization errors. The results will further be interpreted in the context of the existing research on the topic especially on how people perceive felony ex-convicts in the society. This research will help to reduce incidences of prejudice and discrimination of the felony convicts-something that may influence the convicts psychologically.
Reference List
Bowers, M., & Preuhs, R. (2009). Collateral consequences of a collateral penalty: The negative effect of felon disenfranchisement laws on the political participation of non-felons. Social Sciences Quarterly, 90(3), 722-743.
Burch, T. (2011). Turnout and party registration among criminal offenders in the 2008 general election. Law and Society Review, 45(3), 699-730.
Grady, S. (2012). Civil Death is Different: An Examination of A post-Graham Challenge to Felon Disenfranchisement under the Eighth Amendment. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 102(2), 441-470.
Haselswerdt, M. (2009). Con job: An estimate of ex-felon voter turnout using document-based data. Social sciences quarterly, 90(2), 262-273.
McMiller, D. (2008). The campaign to restore the voting rights of people convicted of a felony and sentenced to probation in Connecticut. American Behavioral Scientist, 51(5), 645-658.
Randle, J. (2007). Review of Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy. Law and Society, 41(2), 500-503.
Siegel, J. (2011). Felon disenfranchisement and the right for universal suffrage. Social Work, 56 (1), 89-91.
U.S Department of Justice. (2003). Press release: one in every 32 adults now on probation, Parole, or incarcerated. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.