Prison Reform through Electoral Reform

America is desperately in need of prison reform.  We have the largest prison population in the world, with 2.3 million people incarcerated, and our rate of imprisonment is six times as large as the global median.  We send too many people to prison, often for minor offenses like using drugs or writing bad checks, and for too long, since older people are more expensive to incarcerate and much, much less likely to engage in criminal activity.  Unfortunately, there isn't much of a constituency for prison reform since ex-felons can't vote and generally politicians fear seeming "soft on crime."  However, the New York Times editorial yesterday advocating allowing felons to vote in federal elections may partially solve that problem.  The proposal that makes sense on it's own merits, but will also create a powerful new incentive for politicians to treat former criminals as human beings.

Currently, about four million Americans who have been released from prison are disenfranchised in federal elections by laws barring people with felony convictions from voting. [...]

There is no good reason to deny former prisoners the vote. Once they are back in the community — paying taxes, working, raising families — they have the same concerns as other voters, and they should have the same say in who represents them.

Disenfranchisement laws also work against efforts to help released prisoners turn their lives around. Denying the vote to ex-offenders, who have paid their debt, continues to brand them as criminals, setting them apart from the society they should be rejoining.

Disenfranchisement for felons is justified as an earned "loss of citizenship" after committing acts that violate the social compact.   While this makes sense in a limited way- it seems inappropriate for prisoners to be voting while incarcerated- lifetime bans on voting are punishments above time served without the possibility of appeal.  A middle-aged, taxpaying father or mother has a vital interest in participatory democracy despite past offenses.  Replacing lifetime bans on voting with a probationary period would allow these people to reclaim full rights of citizenship when they have proven they deserve it.  That's good for them and good for America, because these people- and hundreds of thousands of other like them currently incarcerated - would be a strong constituency for reforming our overactive criminal justice system.

We lack a sense of proportionality in our punishment of crimes.  In pursuit of safety we have prioritized inflexible retribution over humane justice; that a person would lose decades of their life for nonviolent crimes seems apparently unjust.  Mandatory minimums and repeat offender laws like "3 strikes and you're out" life sentencing make it impossible for judges to exercise human discretion when faced with situations where effectively ending a person's life just doesn't make sense.  

Long prison sentences are supposedly a necessary deterrent on crime, but in reality just keeping young, male criminals out of society for a few years is usually sufficient to ensure a massive drop off in criminality, especially when accompanied by aggressive rehabilitation.  Even frequent recidivists began to retire to a quieter life as they age and by age 50 criminals are a rarity.  The blood cools, the bones and muscles ache and most people just want to live their life.   Additionally, these long sentences force states to support geriatrics who pose no danger to society during their expensive end of life care.  

Shorter sentences and rehabilitating middle aged career prisoners offers a chance for a stronger American society and stronger government balance sheets.  Enfranchising people who have experienced that reality first hand might spare future generations of Americans from inefficient and masochistic punishments posing as justice.