Felony disenfranchisement in America : historical origins, institutional racism, and modern consequences / Katherine Irene Pettus.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pettus, Katherine Irene, 1956-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Suffrage--United States.

Suffrage.

Prisoners--Suffrage.

United States.

Prisoners--Suffrage--United States.

Prisoners.

Criminal justice, Administration of--United States.

Criminal justice, Administration of.

Physical Description:

xix, 276 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2013]

Summary:

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. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Citizenship and Status Honor: Premodern Origins of the Contemporary American Practice of Felony Disenfranchisement 11

Introduction 11

1 Max Weber's Concept of Status Honor 12

2 Status Honor Institutionalized: Citizenship in the "Republican" Tradition 14

3 The Punishment of Atimia in Athens and Sparta 21

4 The Roman Infamia 26

5 Infamy, Civil Death, Attainder, and "Felony" in European and American Law 28

Conclusion 35

Chapter 2 Felony Disenfranchisement and the Problem of Double Citizenship 37

Introduction: The Scholarly Critique 38

1 The Problem of Double Citizenship in the United States 42

2 Compound Citizenship Identities 50

3 Republican Citizenship 54

4 Democratic Citizenship: Growing in "Ordered Richness" 59

5 Democratic Individuality 65

6 Failures of Democratic Recognition 76

Chapter 3 Representation, Reconstruction, and American Atimia 79

Introduction 79

1 Atimia in the American Context of Representative Government and Party Competition 82

2 The Administrative Imperative of Black Citizenship and the Issue of White Vote Dilution 85

3 The Criminal Justice System as a Representative Institution 90

4 Vote Dilution, Individual Rights, and the Warren Court 99

5 Political Inequality of "Qualified" American Citizens 105

6 Representational versus Electoral Equality 106

Chapter 4 Judicial Justifications of Felony Disenfranchisement and the Politics of Crime and Punishment 121

Introduction 121

1 The Neocontractarian Justification of Felony Disenfranchisement 126

2 The Communitarian or "Republican" Justification of Felony Disenfranchisement 135

3 The Political Justification of Felony Disenfranchisement and the Politics of Law and Order 139

4 The Criminal Justice System as a Continuum of Moments 143

Chapter 5 The Double Polity Identified 149

Introduction 149

1 Overview of Retributive Theory 157

2 The Moral, or Reforming, Justification of Punishment 161

3 The Concept of "Crime" 164

4 Crime, Justice, and Impunity 167

5 The Racial Contract 169

6 A Postcolonial Perspective on the American Punishment Polity 172

7 The Colonial Identity and Racialized Space 175

Conclusion and Summary 180.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781438447209

1438447205

OCLC:

801996299