Pro to the question "Should felons be allowed to vote?"
Reasoning:
"In the real world, however, where a young, poor, black, or Latino man is far more likely to be arrested, incarcerated, and disenfranchised than a more affluent white man, where the fairness of many of the contemporary laws -- in particular those relating to drug sentencing -- that put people in prison is hotly contested, I would contend that disenfranchisement, even temporarily, overall does more societal harm than good. It is too heavily laden with the baggage of a culture divided along racial and class lines ever to be viewed as simply a criminal justice matter; its impact is too predictably absorbed by the economically marginal and the racially discriminated against to be viewed in isolation from broader social tensions."
Conned: How Millions Went to Prison, Lost the Vote, and Helped Send George W. Bush to the White House, Apr. 2006
Organizations/VIPs/Others
Individuals and organizations that do not fit into the other star categories.
Involvement and Affiliations:
Senior Fellow For Democracy at Demos, Present
Lecturer, U.C. Davis, Present
Consultant, Human Rights Watch, 2002-2004
Writer, Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, Rolling Stone, the American Prospect, Mother Jones online, the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Weekly, New York magazine, the London Independent, the London Observer and opinion pieces for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune, and others, 1995-Present
Open Society Institute Crime and Communities Media Fellowship
Education:
MA, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
BA, Politics, Philosophy and Economics, Balliol College, Oxford, 1993
Organizations/VIPs/Others