According to the Sentencing Project, as of 2016 there were "6.1 million disenfranchised individuals across correctional populations. People currently in prison and jail now represent less than one-fourth (23 percent) of those disenfranchised. The majority (77 percent) are living in their communities, having fully completed their sentences or remaining supervised while on probation or parole." This is a crisis too often ignored in the United States where those who have served their prison sentences are still living everyday with their rights stripped from them. Disenfranchising non-violent felons who have served their time is quite contradictory to many fundamentals of America's Criminal Justice System.

By exploring the purposes of prisons, the use of plea bargains, and the racial disparities in prisons, I will further prove my point that disenfranchising non violent felons is a ploy to leave a large percentage of society in silence and therefore ignored.

According to Stop the Crime Organization the four main purposes of prison are retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation. Retribution is "punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act". The action of being incarcerated (separated from society) IS the punishment for being charged with a crime. By not allowing non-violent felons to vote once they have been released is punishing them not once but twice. How can we call ourselves a land of equal opportunity when we silence millions from the opportunity to have their voice heard in society?

Incapacitation is removing a citizen from society. It can be argued that taking away a person's ability to be represented in society through voting is just as impactful as physically locking them away. Again we see citizens paying for the same crime, not once but repeatedly. Every time an election or voting is held they are being deprived of rights that should be fully granted back to them. By making yourself familiar with the double jeopardy clause under the fifth amendment you will see how this is contradictory to yet another fundamental to America's Criminal Justice System.

So if the purposes of prison are counterintuitive, what about the trials leading up to the sentencing? Let's discuss plea bargaining and why it is an unreliable tactic for the accused. Plea bargaining is "an arrangement between a prosecutor and a defendant whereby the defendant pleads guilty to a lesser charge in the expectation of leniency." According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics approximately 90 to 95% of federal and state court cases are facilitated through plea bargaining. When a person takes a plea bargain, although the 6th amendment ensures trial by jury, that right is relinquished.

Thomas Jefferson a Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence and former President once said "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." Everyday in courts all around the nation we are creating a deeper wedge between the people and their rights. Whether plea bargaining be in the name of expediency or more costly we must realize how we are causing millions to suffer. It happens quite often that innocent people plead guilty feeling they are stuck between a rock and a hard place of not being able to afford a trial by jury or the evidence not being in their favor to prove their innocence. According to The Marshall Project, between 2 -8% of those who plead guilty are actually innocent. That is between 40,000-160,000 people. Are their lives not as valuable and worth the fight of ensuring their innocence?

Time and time again I have made the claim that racism is not only interrelational but institutionalized as well. Disenfranchising non violent felons further supports my claim. Voter disenfranchisement for non-violent felons is comparatively modernized Jim Crow laws that keep African Americans and other persons of color from voting. We will center our focus in on drug related offenses. According to the NAACP "African Americans and whites use drugs at similar rates, but the imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug charges is almost 6 times that of whites." During the Jim Crow era many tactics were used such as literacy tests and violence to keep African Americans from voting. Now a small bag of marijuana and being black at the wrong place and time can land you in a similar predicament.

This November, on voting ballots throughout the state of Florida, we will have the opportunity to vote and allow those who have already paid for their crimes to be reinstated as Florida voters. I strongly compel you to use your privilege to grant rights back to those and in essence, help give them their voice back.