Price To Pay To Vote
By: Zachary Lecky
Many people don’t know the basics of the justice system. This is a fact. From people giving up their right to have a lawyer present, to allowing illegal searches without proper protocol, the list goes on and on. The average person doesn’t know how the system works or about the laws in place. It would be safe to say someone in the prison system would know even less. Some would argue the system thrives off the lack of knowledge by people. This is why “The New Jim Crow” was banned by some New Jersey prisons.
Under New Jersey regulations, inmates are not allowed to receive publications that threaten prison safety, incite violence or feature details of activities such as bomb-making and lock-picking. Magazines appealing to a “prurient interest in sex” are also barred. It was not clear from the records why Alexander’s book had been judged unsuitable.”
Of course, they are not clear why the book has been judged unsuitable. Knowledge is power and a smart man is crazy, no one has to worry about a fool. When released from jail, even though they mask jail as necessary punishment to rehabilitate you, they expect many people to return. The list of things you can’t do while on probation is so ludicrous many people fail to comply.
Once in the system and deemed a felon, you are automatically given second citizen stature. You can’t bear arms, vote, hold office, travel abroad, serve on a jury, join the military, or easily get financial aid for education. The list is much longer, so long it would take up the whole article.
Many felons don’t know this. It should be the responsibility of the system that placed them there to teach them so they don’t end up back there. They constantly fail and have shown once again in the case of Crystal Mason.
Mason was indicted on a charge of illegal voting in Tarrant County, Texas, last year and found guilty by State District Judge Ruben Gonzalez despite her saying that she didn’t know that she couldn’t vote and never would have done it had she known.
Her mother encouraged her to vote. This is where the lack of knowledge comes in, this was an simple innocent mistake.
She was still on community supervision at the time of the election, but no one, including her probation officer ever told her that being a felon on supervision meant she couldn’t vote under Texas law.
Mason said, “You think I would jeopardize my freedom? You honestly think I would ever want to leave my babies again? That was the hardest thing in my life to deal with. Who would as a mother, as a provider leave their kids over voting?”
They “did” the crime and did the time, so why can’t they vote? I put did in quotations because someone who was wrongly convicted and placed in jail is now in this same felon group. Why can’t felons vote?
When asked in the Time article “Why Can’t Felons Vote?”, Roger Clegg, president of the conservative advocacy group Center for Equal Opportunity, neatly puts it, “If you aren’t willing to follow the law, you can’t claim the right to make the law for everyone else.”
This simple minded belief unfortunately plagues many minds.
