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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pettus, Katherine Irene, 1956-

Series:

Criminal justice (LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC)

Criminal justice

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Suffrage--United States.

Suffrage.

Prisoners--Suffrage--United States.

Prisoners.

Criminal justice, Administration of--United States.

Criminal justice, Administration of.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (278 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Intro

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Citizenship and Status Honor: Pre- modern Origins of the Contemporary American Practice of Felon Disenfranchisement

Felon Disenfranchisement and the Problem of Double Citizenship

Representation, Reconstruction, and American Atimia

Judicial Justifications of Felon Disenfranchisement and the Politics of Crime and Punishment

The Double Polity Identified

Endnotes

References

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-265) and index.

ISBN:

1-280-36144-1

9786610361441

1-59332-163-5

OCLC:

614843136