Standing Up • A group of people from Project Restoration gathered after testifying at a committee hearing several years ago on a bill to automatically restore civil rights upon completion of sentences. From left: Corey Knox, Southwest Institute for Research on Women; Michelle Convie; former State Representative Ted Downing; Jack Chin, UofA law school; Caroline Isaacs; and Sam Newsome, A. Phillip Randolph Institute.

“Paul,” a police officer in the Phoenix area, certainly believes in being tough on crime. In fact, he insists that society would be much better off if it didn’t embrace a “culture of leniency” in dealing with repeat offenders.
Then again, he acknowledges that his own brother is actually a pretty good guy, and probably doesn’t deserve to have his civil rights taken away permanently, despite the fact that he has committed some serious crimes and spent time in prison.
Paul, who declined to give his real name, says that his brother, a repeat DUI offender and recent parolee, continues to face hard times, despite the fact that he’s completed his sentence and returned to society.
“If he could only catch a break, he’s actually a great guy,” the officer says. “But then again, he’s earned it.”
These days, Paul’s brother is working to put his life back together. But he still faces daunting challenges, including fines and fees yet to be paid and the loss of certain civil rights, including the right to vote.
Paul says his brother would like to be involved in selecting the next president. But in Arizona, the rules pertaining to the voting rights of felons often make it difficult for someone returning to society to enjoy that basic constitutional privilege.
In fact, according to the director of a Tucson-based organization studying sentencing policies in the state, Arizona’s method of restoring civil rights to felons is cumbersome and difficult to navigate.
This goes against an American principle, which suggests that individuals should be embraced by society once they’ve paid their lawful debt, says Caroline Isaacs, director of the Arizona office of the American Friends Service Committee.
“Arizona has the ninth-highest rate of felon disenfranchisement, and the second-highest rate with regards to the African-American community,” says Isaacs.
Unlike most states, which automatically restore voting rights to first-time felons upon completion of their sentences, Arizona applies a multi-tiered system that often permanently disenfranchises felons due to rules requiring that fees and fines be paid before full rights are restored.
“In effect, this creates a poll tax,” says Isaacs. After a second offense, felons must successfully petition the courts before any rights can be restored.
Isaacs and others monitoring the situation call such practices patently unfair.
On the surface, all rights restored
At first glance, Arizona’s rules for restoring civil rights to former prisoners seem straightforward. Upon being released from prison, a first-time felon automatically has his or her rights renewed, at the point of absolute discharge.
It’s at that point, however, that the situation gets complicated, according to Donna Leone Hamm, executive director of Middle Ground Prison Reform, based in Tempe.
The point of absolute discharge, she says, is not the moment when a prisoner sets foot outside the prison walls, with hard labor behind and a looming return to society. Instead, absolute discharge refers to the moment all bills are paid.
“The problem,” she says, “is that in today’s world, very few people are convicted of a single felony count. And more often than not, fines and restitution are attached. Some people may never be able to pay their restitution.
“We’re talking, in some cases, about hundreds of thousands of dollars. And with their felony status, they can’t get work. Thus, they can’t pay it,” says Hamm, whose husband is a convicted felon.
By requiring that felons pay fines and fees before being allowed to vote, the state in essence punishes the poor and rewards the wealthy, she says, as those without means are barred from the voting booth.
“Some felons are in a position to pay their restitution,” she says. “In some cases, their parents pay it. But that shouldn’t be the turning point. The right to vote should not be connected to wealth.”
Arizona is not the only state with rules that effectively disenfranchise former prisoners, according to a nonprofit research group that favors more liberal sentencing policies for criminals, and monitors the restoration of civil rights upon prisoner release.
According to a post-2004 election study by The Sentencing Project, more than a million former convicts are unable to vote in more than a dozen states across the country because of policies that make it confusing and difficult to return to the voter rolls after completing their sentences.
The 2005 study, cited by The New York Times, indicates that fewer than 3 percent of felons in 14 states across the country, including Arizona, have managed to register to vote after completing their sentences.
In Mississippi, for instance, just 107 of more than 82,000 felons since 1992 have had their voting rights restored after completion of their sentences, according to the study. And in Nebraska, the tally was 343 of more than 44,000 former prisoners.
The issue of felon disenfranchisement became contentious during the 2000 Florida election, and again in 2004, because of accusations that felons — many of them members of minority groups — had been blocked from re-registering. Legislators in some states have pushed to loosen restrictions on registering felons, but others have advocated expanding the types of crimes that would make an offender ineligible to vote.
Current presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton is among those who have introduced legislation that would seek to restore voting rights to felons “who have paid their debt to society,” and require states to end the practice of denying voting rights to felons who have completed their prison terms, parole or probation.
The Sentencing Project reports that its study was the first to explore how frequently felons are denied voting rights in states with restrictive policies. In its report, the organization examined 14 states that do not automatically restore voting rights to felons after they complete their sentences.
In addition to Arizona, those states included Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
Florida was the only state where a significant number of former prisoners had their voting rights restored, after prolonged fighting in court. Roughly 48,000 former prisoners had returned to the voting rolls by 2005, according to the study.
In Arizona, more than 176,000 individuals are considered disenfranchised, including a disproportionately high number of African-Americans and Hispanics, according to Hamm.
Investing in individuals
and the community
Michele Convie, a former prisoner now employed at a Tucson women’s shelter, says the road to re-establishing civil rights can be long and frustrating.
This year, Convie will vote in a presidential election for the first time in two decades. During the 1980s, she served two prison terms for possessing marijuana, and since then has struggled to have her voting rights restored. Along the way, she has worked toward a college degree in social work and has ment
ored female prisoners who are trying to re-enter society.
She says she’s been drug-free for 21 years “and a contributing member of society” during that time.
“People are not invested in their community if they don’t have their civil rights,” she says, adding that it took years of wading through bureaucracy to regain the right enter a voting booth.
Eventually, she had to track down the judge who had sentenced her two decades earlier and petition the court to have her rights restored.
“He was still there, in Gila County, all those years later,” Convie says. “But we lose so many people because the process is so arduous. You shouldn’t have to be old and stubborn like me to get this done.”
Ryan King, a policy analyst with The Sentencing Project, says a host of barriers prevents the restoration of voting and other rights. And while some individuals ultimately are successful in rejoining society, others never achieve that goal.
In addition to monitoring disenfranchisement across the country, The Sentencing Project works to educate former prisoners on the process of petitioning the states.
“Frequently, we’re handling phone calls and e-mails from people who don’t know what their rights are,” says King. “We point them in the right direction. In many cases, those who contact us have been eligible to vote for a long period of time, but they can’t get information from their state officials.
“This is a real failure at the state level.”
However, Arizona State Election Director Joe Kanefield says voting policies reflect long-standing traditions within the state, as well as consistent decisions made by courts at home and in Washington.
“We believe the statutes are lawful,” he says. “Obviously, groups have raised these issues, but the Supreme Court has upheld states’ rights to disenfranchise felons, and recent challenges have been rejected by the courts.”
Paul, the Phoenix-area police officer, says he witnesses his brother’s frustration in trying to re-establish his life and civil rights. Yet he also believes that the system must take a tough stand on criminal behavior — even if the punishment extends past the day that a felon walks out of prison.
“That’s not to say that first-time offenders shouldn’t have another chance,” he says. “The problem is that our society gives too many third and fourth chances.”
Still, he concedes, looking at it from an individual standpoint makes it difficult to view such situations in black-and-white terms. His brother, for instance, might be doing better if his circumstances were different.
“He’s a good person,” Paul says. “It’s hard to watch him go through this.” ≠