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Originally Posted by Ace_O_Spades
Perhaps that's your problem? Rehabilitation requires holistic community support. And feeling empowered to change the world around you through legitimate means (voting) would be a valuable step in providing this.
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Nope.
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When your society tells you you're worthless, and you are actively stigmatized and marginalized for *gasp* making a mistake, you see the opportunities to change your lot in life through legitimate means disappear.
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A huge % of the country who CAN vote don't and they seem to not be committing felonies.
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Labeling theory suggests that the very real marginalization and stigmatization offered by the label "criminal" or "felon" leads to secondary deviance, which is basically the self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people adopt the self-image that is foisted upon them by society at large. Hence, increased recidivism when there are not adequate measures to ensure reintegration back into the community after being released from an institution. All these people need is hope for a better life, and the means by which to achieve it.
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Psychobabble.
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Rehabilitation is possible, I've seen it work with my own eyes. However, the community has to buy into it first or it's just a buzz word.
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Rehabilitation is the person wising up, not everyone stays a criminal but, like a diet, its up to them to want to change.
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Yeah yeah, I know what you're going to say I'm favouring the criminal over the victim. You can throw pretty much any crime-control dogma you want at me, I can take it. All I know is how unsatisfied victims are with even harsh sentences for the offender. They know they will be released with little to no rehabilitation, and they often live in fear because they do not know why they or their loved one was the target of the crime. What's the solution to this problem? It's not harsher sentences. I suggest you do some reading on Restorative Justice, and please for once, just once, leave your own opinions and biases at the door. If that's even possible.
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Sorry no, they still can't vote, not theirs. You can get all flowery and such about rehabilitating criminals if you like but the system as is, is what is is, and as such its punishment. Therefore I have no problem with them not being able to vote. Maybe in the land of make believe, where the prisoners are in fact rehabilitated by the holistic community and gumdrop social workers are like the dog whisperer but for ex-cons, they should have the right to vote. This isn't the current reality.