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Felon disenfranchisement is the policy of revoking a citizen’s right to vote upon conviction of a felony. Nearly 5.2 million Americans were banned from the voting booth in 2020 for this reason. This thesis asks, is felon disenfranchisement empirically related to recidivism? After historical, theoretical, and international contextualization, this thesis presents an analysis of never-before-used data and the results of an original study to answer this question. Chapters One through Three explore the history, theoretical justification, and international context of felon disenfranchisement. The history of felon disenfranchisement reveals that these policies were designed and developed over millennia to be degrading, humiliating, and (as employed by the United States) racist. No political or penological theories espoused by the United States justifies felon disenfranchisement in its current form. In comparison to other liberal democracies, the United States has refused to confront the history of felon disenfranchisement or to evaluate it robustly according to foundational public values. Chapters Four and Five are the heart of this thesis and present unique and original analyses of quantitative and qualitative data that explores the relationship between felon disenfranchisement and recidivism. The quantitative analysis relies on a national longitudinal dataset that has never been used to explore the relationship between voting and recidivism. Using bivariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression, this analysis finds that there is likely a statistically significant negative relationship between voting and recidivism. The original study includes 6 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with formerly incarcerated citizens. These interviews were designed to evaluate three topics: 1) attitudes toward the government before, during, and after incarceration; 2) perceptions about citizenship and the right to vote; and 3) political behaviors before and after incarceration. This study finds that felon disenfranchisement ... |