A presidential visit to a prison has ignited a national conversation about what it means.
“President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. While that may seem surprising, there’s actually a really simple, if cynical, explanation: Not only are prisoners generally reviled by society, but a great majority of them can’t vote, reducing the incentive for a politician to care about them,” according to www.vox.com.
Forty-eight states have various laws that bar those with criminal records from voting; in only two states, Maine and Vermont, does everyone have the right to vote, regardless of criminal record, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
“In 2012, more than 5.8 million Americans were not legally allowed to vote due to prisoner and felony disenfranchisement,” the Sentencing Project reported.
Hardest hit by disenfranchisement laws is the African-American population — in Florida, Kentucky and Virginia, Black disenfranchisement was more than 20 percent, according to data by the Sentencing Project.
The purpose of the visit by President Obama to the federal medium-security prison near Oklahoma City was to push for criminal justice reforms that would decrease incarceration, according to the Washington Post.