Felons and the Right to Vote

Tonight, in Cudahy Hall, Room 001 at 7:00 p.m., there is a presentation by Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project titled “Losing the Vote: Felony Disenfranchisement and American Democracy,”

The Sentencing Project is a liberal operation that doesn’t like putting criminals in prison.

Which is to say that (although they would not admit it) that they don’t particularly mind people (particularly poor people in high crime areas) being victimized by crime.

Which is not to say that Mauer is wrong about giving felons the vote. Our view tends to be “if you let somebody out of prison, and you don’t think they have been punished enough, just keep them another six months or a year, rather than sticking them with lifetime disabilities.”

Good reading in preparation for the politically correct cant that Mauer is likely to produce is our own essay “Does Wisconsin Lock Up Too Many Blacks?” which deals not only with the racial issue, but with the advantages (now unquestioned by economists) of incarceration.