Punishment & Society 14(4) 402–428 ! The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1462474512452513

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Punishment & Society

14(4) 402–428

! The Author(s) 2012

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1462474512452513

pun.sagepub.com

Article

Civil death: An
examination of ex-felon
disenfranchisement and
reintegration

Bryan Lee Miller
Georgia Southern University, USA

Joseph F Spillane
University of Florida, USA

Abstract

In the state of Florida, when someone is found guilty of a felony crime they forfeit the

right to vote, serve on a jury, and run for elected office. These civil rights are lost

regardless of whether they are sentenced to incarceration, probation, or released into

the community. The process to regain these civil rights can be difficult, time consuming,

and impossible for some. Research on prisoner reentry suggests that the loss of these

civil rights constitutes a barrier to full citizenship that may impede the process of

community reintegration. This research employs 54 semi-structured interviews with

ex-felons who have lost the right to vote to better understand the meaning former

offenders attribute to the loss of their civil rights and to assess the impact this may

have on staying out of trouble. Findings from this study suggest that for a significant

number of ex-offenders the loss of voting rights poses an obstacle to successful

reintegration.

Keywords

disenfranchisement, ex-felon, reentry, reintegration, voting

Corresponding author:

Bryan Lee Miller, PhD, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia Southern University, 2219

Carroll Building, PO Box 8101, Statesboro, GA 30460-8101, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Introduction

The United States is unique among democratic nations in how it handles the right
to vote for those convicted of criminal offenses. The United States is distinguished
by both the scope of criminal disenfranchisement laws and the scale of their appli-
cation (Ewald and Rottinghaus, 2009). Internationally, several studies perceive a
move toward ‘reenfranchising’ prisoners (Ewald and Rottinghaus, 2009; Ispahani,
2006; Uggen and Inderbitzin, 2009). Uggen et al. (2009) noted that 40 of 105
nations surveyed allowed prisoners to vote while incarcerated, while 65 nations
have some form of disenfranchisement provisions. In the United States, o

Three Strikes and You Are Out, but Why? The Psychology of Public Support for
Punishing Rule Breakers
Author(s): Tom R. Tyler and Robert J. Boeckmann
Source: Law & Society Review, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1997), pp. 237-266
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Law and Society Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3053926
Accessed: 06-02-2017 16:56 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted

digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about

JSTOR, please contact [email protected]

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Terms and Conditions of Use

Law and Society Association, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Law & Society Review

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All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

237

Three Stikes and You Are Out, but Why?

The Psychology of Public Support for Pllnishing

Rule Breakers

Tom R. Tyler RobertJ. Boeckmann

This study examines why the public supports the punishment of rule
breakers. It does so within the context of a recently enacted California initiative
mandating life in prison for repeat felons (the “three strikes” law). Antecedents
of three aspects of people’s reactions to rule breakers are explored: ( 1 ) support
for the three strikes initiative, (2) support for punitiveness in dealing with rule
breakers, and (3) willingness to abandon procedural protections when dealing
with potential rule breakers. The results of interviews with members of the pub-
lic suggest that the widely held view that public punitiveness develops primarily
from concerns about crime and the courts and is primarily linked to public
views about risk and dangerousness is incorrect. While these factors do influ-
ence public feelings, they are not the central reasons underlying public puni-
tiveness. Instead, the source of people’s concerns lies primarily in their evalua-
tions of social conditions, including the decline in morality and discipline
within the family and increases in the diversity of society. These concerns are
about issues of moral cohesion with people feeling that the quality and extent
of social bonds and social consensus has deteriorated in American society.

^ he desire to punish those who break social rules is a wide-
spread, if not universal, feature of human societies. Social psy-
chologists, sociologists, and

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Volume 32 | Issue 6 Article 3

1942

Morals and the Criminal Law
Richard C. Fuller

Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc

Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal
Justice Commons

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for
inclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons.

Recommended Citation
Richard C. Fuller, Morals and the Criminal Law, 32 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 624 (1941-1942)

Law and Morality

Author(s): Jerome E. Bickenbach

Source: Law and Philosophy , Dec., 1989, Vol. 8, No. 3, Symposium on Legitimacy of Law
(Dec., 1989), pp. 291-300

Published by: Springer

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3504589

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at

Terms and Conditions of Use

Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Law and
Philosophy

This content downloaded from
�������������75.89.149.244 on Sat, 07 Jan 2023 04:00:05 UTC�������������

All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

JEROME E. BICKENBACH

LAW AND MORALITY*

I.

The relationship between morality and law is one of the more endur-
ing problematics of jurisprudence. It has come to be the locus of the
dispute between natural law and legal positivism and has generated a
variety of controversies about the scope of legal enforcement. Like
many perennial philosophical issues, moreover, it has endured because
we are pulled in two opposing but equally plausible directions.

We are convinced, first of all, that questions of the existence of law
are categorically distinct from questions of the moral acceptability of
law.’ Law and morality, that is, are at best extrinsically related. More-
over, the law as it is seems to be the product of social forces too
complex and haphazard to preserve, or create, an unambiguous moral
foundation. This being so, neither substantive law nor legal practice or
institution can have an intrinsic claim on our moral allegiance. The
law is merely a social instrument to be closely monitored and assessed
against extra-legal standards of moral or political acceptability.

Still, we also find it difficult to deny that, in at least some respects,

* An earlier version of this paper was read at the Symposium on the Legitimacy
of Law in Modem Society, Tampere, Finland, August 1988.
1 This proposition was central to early legal positivism; see John Austin, The
Province ofJurisprudence Determined (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965) and
Jeremy Bentham, Of Laws in General, ed. H. L. A. Hart (London: Athlone Press,
1970). John Chipman Gray expres

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275449517

Moral Judgment, Crime Seriousness, and the Relations Between Them: An

Exploratory Study

Article  in  Crime & Delinquency · January 2012

DOI: 10.1177/0011128712466889

CITATIONS

16
READS

1,801

2 authors:

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Public perceptions of crime seriousness View project

Attitudes toward offenders View project

Sergio Herzog

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

38 PUBLICATIONS   518 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Tomer Einat

Bar Ilan University

9 PUBLICATIONS   114 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Sergio Herzog on 02 February 2018.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Punishment & Society 14(4) 402–428 ! The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1462474512452513 pun.sagepub.com Article Civil death: An examination of ex-felon disenfranchisement and reintegration Bryan Lee Miller Georgia Southern University, USA Joseph F Spillane University of Florida, USA Abstract In the state of Florida, when someone is found guilty of a felony crime they forfeit the right to vote, serve on a jury, and run for elected office. These civil rights are lost regardless of whether they are sentenced to incarceration, probation, or released into the community. The process to regain these civil rights can be difficult, time consuming, and impossible for some. Research on prisoner reentry suggests that the loss of these civil rights constitutes a barrier to full citizenship that may impede the process of community reintegration. This research employs 54 semi-structured interviews with ex-felons who have lost the right to vote to better understand the meaning former offenders attribute to the loss of their civil rights and to assess the impact this may have on staying out of trouble. Findings from this study suggest that for a significant number of ex-offenders the loss of voting rights poses an obstacle to successful reintegration. Keywords disenfranchisement, ex-felon, reentry, reintegration, voting Corresponding author: Bryan Lee Miller, PhD, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia Southern University, 2219 Carroll Building, PO Box 8101, Statesboro, GA 30460-8101, USA. Email: [email protected] http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F1462474512452513&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2012-10-09 Introduction The United States is unique among democratic nations in how it handles the right to vote for those convicted of criminal offenses. The United States is distinguished by both the scope of criminal disenfranchisement laws and the scale of their appli- cation (Ewald and Rottinghaus, 2009). Internationally, several studies perceive a move toward ‘reenfranchising’ prisoners (Ewald and Rottinghaus, 2009; Ispahani, 2006; Uggen and Inderbitzin, 2009). Uggen et al. (2009) noted that 40 of 105 nations surveyed allowed prisoners to vote while incarcerated, while 65 nations have some form of disenfranchisement provisions. In the United States, o Three Strikes and You Are Out, but Why? The Psychology of Public Support for Punishing Rule Breakers Author(s): Tom R. Tyler and Robert J. Boeckmann Source: Law & Society Review, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1997), pp. 237-266 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Law and Society Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3053926 Accessed: 06-02-2017 16:56 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at Terms and Conditions of Use Law and Society Association, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Law & Society Review This content downloaded from 168.30.17.3 on Mon, 06 Feb 2017 16:56:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 237 Three Stikes and You Are Out, but Why? The Psychology of Public Support for Pllnishing Rule Breakers Tom R. Tyler RobertJ. Boeckmann This study examines why the public supports the punishment of rule breakers. It does so within the context of a recently enacted California initiative mandating life in prison for repeat felons (the “three strikes” law). Antecedents of three aspects of people’s reactions to rule breakers are explored: ( 1 ) support for the three strikes initiative, (2) support for punitiveness in dealing with rule breakers, and (3) willingness to abandon procedural protections when dealing with potential rule breakers. The results of interviews with members of the pub- lic suggest that the widely held view that public punitiveness develops primarily from concerns about crime and the courts and is primarily linked to public views about risk and dangerousness is incorrect. While these factors do influ- ence public feelings, they are not the central reasons underlying public puni- tiveness. Instead, the source of people’s concerns lies primarily in their evalua- tions of social conditions, including the decline in morality and discipline within the family and increases in the diversity of society. These concerns are about issues of moral cohesion with people feeling that the quality and extent of social bonds and social consensus has deteriorated in American society. ^ he desire to punish those who break social rules is a wide- spread, if not universal, feature of human societies. Social psy- chologists, sociologists, and Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 32 | Issue 6 Article 3 1942 Morals and the Criminal Law Richard C. Fuller Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. Recommended Citation Richard C. Fuller, Morals and the Criminal Law, 32 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 624 (1941-1942) https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc?utm_source=scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu%2Fjclc%2Fvol32%2Fiss6%2F3&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol32?utm_source=scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu%2Fjclc%2Fvol32%2Fiss6%2F3&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol32/iss6?utm_source=scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu%2Fjclc%2Fvol32%2Fiss6%2F3&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol32/iss6/3?utm_source=scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu%2Fjclc%2Fvol32%2Fiss6%2F3&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc?utm_source=scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu%2Fjclc%2Fvol32%2Fiss6%2F3&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages Law and Morality Author(s): Jerome E. Bickenbach Source: Law and Philosophy , Dec., 1989, Vol. 8, No. 3, Symposium on Legitimacy of Law (Dec., 1989), pp. 291-300 Published by: Springer Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3504589 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at Terms and Conditions of Use Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Law and Philosophy This content downloaded from �������������75.89.149.244 on Sat, 07 Jan 2023 04:00:05 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms https://www.jstor.org/stable/3504589 JEROME E. BICKENBACH LAW AND MORALITY* I. The relationship between morality and law is one of the more endur- ing problematics of jurisprudence. It has come to be the locus of the dispute between natural law and legal positivism and has generated a variety of controversies about the scope of legal enforcement. Like many perennial philosophical issues, moreover, it has endured because we are pulled in two opposing but equally plausible directions. We are convinced, first of all, that questions of the existence of law are categorically distinct from questions of the moral acceptability of law.’ Law and morality, that is, are at best extrinsically related. More- over, the law as it is seems to be the product of social forces too complex and haphazard to preserve, or create, an unambiguous moral foundation. This being so, neither substantive law nor legal practice or institution can have an intrinsic claim on our moral allegiance. The law is merely a social instrument to be closely monitored and assessed against extra-legal standards of moral or political acceptability. Still, we also find it difficult to deny that, in at least some respects, * An earlier version of this paper was read at the Symposium on the Legitimacy of Law in Modem Society, Tampere, Finland, August 1988. 1 This proposition was central to early legal positivism; see John Austin, The Province ofJurisprudence Determined (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965) and Jeremy Bentham, Of Laws in General, ed. H. L. A. Hart (London: Athlone Press, 1970). John Chipman Gray expres See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275449517 Moral Judgment, Crime Seriousness, and the Relations Between Them: An Exploratory Study Article  in  Crime & Delinquency · January 2012 DOI: 10.1177/0011128712466889 CITATIONS 16 READS 1,801 2 authors: Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Public perceptions of crime seriousness View project Attitudes toward offenders View project Sergio Herzog Hebrew University of Jerusalem 38 PUBLICATIONS   518 CITATIONS    SEE PROFILE Tomer Einat Bar Ilan University 9 PUBLICATIONS   114 CITATIONS    SEE PROFILE All content following this page was uploaded by Sergio Herzog on 02 February 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275449517_Moral_Judgment_Crime_Seriousness_and_the_Relations_Between_Them_An_Exploratory_Study?enrichId=rgreq-f85cc701f4dfa519ecf3c7c765924ec6-XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI3NTQ0OTUxNztBUzo1ODk1NDgxMDI4ODk0NzNAMTUxNzU3MDYyOTg2Mw%3D%3D&el=1_x_2&_esc=publicationCoverPdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275449517_Moral_Judgment_Crime_Seriousness_and_the_Relations_Between_Them_An_Exploratory_Study?enrichId=rgreq-f85cc701f4dfa519ecf3c7c765924ec6-XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI3NTQ0OTUxNztBUzo1ODk1NDgxMDI4ODk0NzNAMTUxNzU3MDYyOTg2Mw%3D%3D&el=1_x_3&_esc=publicationCoverPdf https://www.researchgate.net/project/Public-perceptions-of-crime-seriousness?enrichId=rgreq-f85cc701f4dfa519ecf3c7c765924ec6-XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI3NTQ0OTUxNztBUzo1ODk1NDgxMDI4ODk0NzNAMTUxNzU3MDYyOTg2Mw%3D%3D&el=1_x_9&am

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