VOTING ACTS: FIGHTING THE DISENFRANCHISEMENT OF AMERICA'S FUTURE GENERATIONS

Last month, the Sentencing Project and Human Rights Watch released a
report on the devastating effects of felony disenfranchisement laws.
These laws, which vary from state to state, preclude convicted felons
from voting.

Some felons can never vote, others can't vote as long as they are on
probation or parole, and others can't vote while they are imprisoned.
Many of the report's findings are staggering, including that 13
percent of all black men are presently disenfranchised, and if current
incarceration rates continue, 30 percent of the next generation of
black men will be disenfranchised.

In several Southern states, including Alabama, Florida, Mississippi
and Virginia, these laws permanently deprive between a fourth and a
third of all black men of the right to vote.

In many ways, the report actually understates the impact of these laws
on the next generation of poor, primarily minority children who are
now or will soon be coming into contact with our justice system. The
trend to "criminalize" our juvenile justice systems, most notably the
near-universal trend in the states to make it easier to transfer
children to adult court, will have the practical effect of
disenfranchising hundreds of thousands more adults for acts they
committed as children.

Between 1992 and 1995, 41 states passed laws making it easier to
transfer children to adult court. These states lowered the age at
which juveniles can be transferred, expanded the list of transferable
crimes and changed the transfer decision-making process, typically by
taking discretion from judges and giving it to prosecutors. Twenty six
states have no bottom age limit for transferring children charged with
certain crimes. If convicted in adult court, these children receive
permanent felony convictions on their records. In 10 states, including
five Southern states, absent a pardon from the governor, this will be
bar them from voting for life--even if they never served a day of jail
time.

This combination of felony disenfranchisement and transfer laws leads
to the absurd result of depriving persons of a fundamental right of
citizenship--in some cases for life--even before they have reached the
age when they can exercise the right to vote. In fact, in the majority
of our states, adults may be deprived of this right for acts they
engaged in before reaching the age of reason.

At least two factors act to multiply the number of adults who are
disenfranchised for crimes committed as youths. First, many more
crimes are treated as "felonies" than ever before, including
schoolyard fights, possessing small amounts of drugs and innocuous
adolescent sexual encounters. Second, juveniles, unlike adults, commit
crimes in groups.

Within each group, there's the unknowing tag-along, the more informed
wanna-be and the all-knowing perpetrator. Typically, these children
are all charged with the same crime under broad state "accountability"
laws and tried as adults.

Two other trends work together to expand the duration of this
disenfranchisement. In most states, juveniles convicted in adult court
must be given the same long mandatory minimum sentences as adults.

"Truth-in sentencing" provisions require that they serve between 85
and 100 percent of their sentences for many crimes. Together, these
provisions prevent judges from considering youth as a mitigating
factor in sentencing and prevent parole boards from reducing time
served after sentencing. The net result is that even in those states
which only prevent prisoners from voting, like Illinois, there are
many adults who can't vote for a long time.

Finally, trends in juvenile court further multiply the numbers of
disenfranchised felons. Many state juvenile codes now incorporate the
adult lexicon of "felonies" and "convictions" instead of the less
stigmatic terms historically used to describe juvenile delinquency. In
many states, juvenile court judges now have the power to impose long
incarcerative sentences on juveniles convicted of felonies. These
juvenile court "felony convictions" may also be a bar to voting.

It's hard to tell just how many adults can't vote as a result of acts
they committed as children because the data on numbers of children
tried as adults is sketchy and because the full effects of these laws
are just beginning to be felt. But the Justice Department's figures
suggest conservatively that at least 200,000 youths under 18 are tried
each year as adults. And this figure is based on data from 1994, which
was before the tidal wave of transfer laws had crested.

The upcoming centennial of the juvenile court provides a compelling
reason for researching more fully the combined effect of felony
disenfranchisement laws and the laws "adultifying" juvenile
delinquency.

Jane Addams, the Chicago crusader who played key roles in both the
juvenile court and women's suffrage movements, must be turning over in
her grave at the thought that so many men and women are being deprived
of their right to vote for acts they committed as children.

Steven Drizin is a supervising attorney at Northwestern University
School of Law's Children and Family Justice Center, where he
represents children charged with crimes in the juvenile and criminal
courts.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady