formerly incarcerated
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Boxed Out of the Ballot: Florida Supreme Court Rules Formerly Incarcerated Must Pay Outstanding Fees Before Voting
In November 2018, Florida voters moved to restore voting rights to 1.4 million convicted felons following their release. Amendment 4 to the state constitution was seen as a major victory for civil liberties advocates, who have been fighting across the country to restore the political voices of the formerly incarcerated. But a Republican-controlled legislature quickly…
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Kamala Harris and AOC Introduce Legislation That Protects Formerly Incarcerated People Against Federal Housing Discrimination
U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is introducing a bill Wednesday with freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) that aims to protect people with criminal records from discriminatory policies in federal housing. According to Sen. Harris’s office, the Fair Chance at Housing Act is designed to cut down on recidivism by helping ex-offenders secure…
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A Case for Educational Reparations for Formerly Incarcerated People
We don’t like to think of social justice as a zero-sum game. But there are costs associated with bringing equity and fairness to victims of discrimination, especially for those incarcerated throughout this nation. Those restitutions won’t come out of thin air. Stanford University research shows that the black incarceration rate nationwide is five times the…