Disenfranchisement Pros And Cons

It 's been 51 years since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law, yet it seems as if voter discrimination may still be going on today. Some of the legal barriers, that it was originally meant to overcome, such as preventing African Americans from voting, have been rising in many other forms through voter identification laws. Lizette Alvarez in "G.O.P. Legislators Move to Tighten Rules on Voting", discusses some of the requirements that Republicans have tried to add to voter identification laws over many years such as photo ID’s. Kristen Clarke in "Burdening The Right To Vote: Assessing The Impact Of Mandatory Photo Identification Requirements On Minority Voting Strength", discusses how requiring photo ID’s can greatly affect African

Constitution place on state’s power to determine voter qualifications? Those limitations start with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This act prohibits racial discrimination when voting in the local, state, and federal levels. “Section 2, which closely followed the language of the 15th amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition of the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color” (ourdocuments.gov). Not since the reconstruction period after the civil war had there been such a “significant statutory change in the relationship between the Federal and state governments” (ourdocuments.gov).

This act closed loopholes left in the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and extended powers and more freedoms to African American people. The Act provided more power to the Civil Rights Commission allowing members of the commission to take statements and oaths from witnesses. This allowed for easier persecution, investigation, and action to be taken in matters involving the civil rights movement. The Act also reiterates that all who have been given the legal right to vote shall not be deprived of this right on the basis of colour or race. It states a person obstructing someone’s legal right to vote shall face the “constitute contempt of court”.

http://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/felons-voting-rights-history/2015/04/16/id/638889/ "Disfranchisement." West 's Encyclopedia of American Law. 2005. Retrieved May 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3437701425.html “Felon Voting.” ProCon. 2008.

They have limited us with many resources we “can do” but still violate those laws and don’t get punished for it. As it is cited on Source # 2: from “ The Franchise of the Negro” by Charles W. Chesnutt says, “The object of the elective franchise is to give representation. So long as the Constitution retains its present form, any State Constitution, or statute, which seeks, by juggling the ballot, to deny the colored race fair representation, is a clear violation of the

The Voting Rights Act was passed into law on August 6, 1965. The law prohibited the use of poll taxes and literacy tests that prevented Southern Blacks from voting. It also gave the federal government authority to supervise how poll taxes are conducted within places with disfranchised African Americans. After the Civil War, regardless of the 15th amendment, which banned the states from denying the right to vote of male citizens based on their race or previous condition of servitude before the war, discrimination was still around, prevented African Americans from voting. Many voting rights activists were also being mistreated violently.

The 15th Amendment (Amendment XV), which gave African-American men the right to vote, was inserted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment says, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Although the amendment was passed in the late 1870s, many racist practices were used to oppose African-Americans from voting, especially in the Southern States like Georgia and Alabama. After many years of racism, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overthrow legal barricades at the state and local levels that deny African-Americans their right to vote. In the

Is it fair that an African American man is sentenced up to life in prison for possession of drugs when Brock Turner is sentenced to only 14 years, later to be reduced to six months for sexually assaulting an unconscious women. The judiciary system are believed to have a high african american incarceration rate as a result of discrimination. At a presidential debate on Martin Luther King Day, President Barack Obama said that “Blacks and whites are arrested at very different rates, are convicted at very different rates, and receive very different sentences… for the same crime.” Hillary Clinton said the “disgrace of a criminal-justice system that incarcerates so many more african americans proportionately than whites.”

In her book, The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander who was a civil rights lawyer and legal scholar, reveals many of America’s harsh truths regarding race within the criminal justice system. Though the Jim Crow laws have long been abolished, a new form has surfaced, a contemporary system of racial control through mass incarceration. In this book, mass incarceration not only refers to the criminal justice system, but also a bigger picture, which controls criminals both in and out of prison through laws, rules, policies and customs. The New Jim Crow that Alexander speaks of has redesigned the racial caste system, by putting millions of mainly blacks, as well as Hispanics and some whites, behind bars

To accomplish social equality and justice has been a long controversial issue in U.S. history. Voting Rights Act of 1965 should be understood as a tremendous accomplishment today because it not only represent a symbol of the triumph of fighting social injustice, but also open the first gate for African American and minority to strive for more political power in order to create a “great society.”

Therefore, making plea bargains necessary for the courts although more minorities use these plea bargains, which could potentially explain why so many minorities are over represented in the correctional system (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone,

The judgment of those who have committed serious crimes is not only arguable but untrustworthy. The right to vote should not return to felons upon completing their sentence because, there is no way of knowing if the individual has since improved their character. Ex cons should have to go a certain amount time without committing any sort of crime before voting rights are restored. While some may feel not permitting felons to vote goes against the eighth amendment, not allowing them to vote is in the people’s best

Over time our Constitution of the United States has given us more voting privileges. We’ve allowed most of our population to be able to vote now in 2017. The only people who can’t are people under the age of 18, aren’t registered, or not a citizen. At one point in time only a select group of people were able to.

However, until today, African Americans still couldn’t get their real voting rights. This act doesn’t totally infer this situation, no matter how industrious blacks demand their completed fundamental rights. Except African American, within the United States, many minorities have struggled for their rights for many years. It is necessary for a government to protect all citizens’ rights, including the minorities. If the government couldn’t do that, as a citizen, we should speak out our perspectives by participating in the voting

The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for several reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. This literature review will discuss the ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system and how mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism has become a problem.