uviol_catharsis

At any given time, two million Americans are in jail, and only two states will let them vote while they're there. America puts more of its people in prison than any other country in the world, apart from Rwanda. I'm not going to get into the many iniquities of America's mass-incarceration policy right now, but it's worth noting that the slope of the pitch is increased by the so-called War On Drugs, which has systematically contravened the Universal Declaration On Human Rights and the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments to the American Constitution in its drive to ensure that one third of all black American men will spend some of their life in prison. And a lot of Hispanics. (And more than a few white people.) In a quarter of American states (including Florida), nobody with a felony conviction is ever allowed to vote again. Other US states make it possible, but difficult, to regain the right to vote after a felony conviction. In Florida, one third of the black male population already cannot vote. Half a million people are disenfranchised in this way in Florida alone. Bush "won" the American election by "winning" Florida by 537 votes. Go figure.