Locked Out

• 5.4 million Americans - 1 in every 40 voting age adults - are denied the right to participate in democratic elections because of a past or current felony conviction.
• The vast majority of these 5.4 million people are not currently in prison.
• In several American states, 1 in 4 black men cannot vote due to a felony conviction.
• The disenfranchisement of former felons in Florida who have completed their entire sentence likely swung that state toward George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential race, effectively deciding both the election and the course of American history.

In a country that prides itself on universal suffrage and the promise of democracy for all, how did the United States come to deny a voice to such a large percentage of its citizenry? What are the consequences of large-scale disenfranchisement - both for election outcomes, and for public policy more generally?

Locked Out exposes one of the most important, yet little known, threats to the health of American democracy today. It reveals the centrality of racial factors in the origins of these laws, and their impact on politics today. Put simply, the legacy of race and racial oppression cannot be meaningfully separated from the history of voting rights. Furthermore, what does it say about a country when it snatches away forever a citizen’s most cherished act of political expression, with little prospect of redemption?

In a system in which one can permanently lose one’s voting rights for minor offenses, something has gone terribly wrong. Marshalling the first real empirical evidence on the issue to make a case for reform, the authors’ path-breaking analysis will inform all future policy and political debates on the laws governing the political power of criminals.

• Shows the powerful link between disenfranchisement and the legacy of race and racial oppression in the United States.
• Reveals new and important empirical evidence, including that most of the felons who are disenfranchised are not violent criminals.
• Most of the increase in disenfranchisement comes from stiffer penalties for non-violent crimes rather than an increase in criminality.
• Proposes reforms that address the problem of the outcome of the loss of felons’ vote on close elections, loss of support for the Democratic Party, rights of criminals, recidivism rates, reintegration of felons into the community and more.