Adam Ruins Prison

I recently read a room for debate article entitled, Should felons ever be allowed to vote. In this article, two people, a white man and an African american woman (yes their race and gender do matter)*, argue whether or not people should be able to vote when coming out of prison.

Roger Clegg argues that, no, everyone that comes out prison does not deserve the right to vote, and every convicted felons right to vote should be determined on a case by case basis. On the other hand, Janai S. Nelson argues that most of the laws put into place regarding disenfranchisement have extremely racist origins and were made to diminish the black vote. Because of these laws 1/13 African Americans are kept from voting. She believes that, "In a country that has the highest incarceration rate of any modern democratic nation, laws that prevent prisoners from voting also imprison our democracy," while Clegg believes that those who cannot follow the law do not deserve to be apart of the law making process.

There is a show called Adam ruins everything in which he basically describes why what we think is incorrect. In one episode he ruined our misconceptions about Prison. In this show there were two points that really helped me to hone in on my opinions on this article. The first being that most US Prisons are run by for profit companies that are getting paid for the amount of people in prison. Because of this there are barely any  rehabilitation programs put in place. The second being that Black men are 60 times more likely to be in prison than white men. For whatever reason this is, it keeps black men from voting. 
After watching this episode. I came to the conclusion that before we talk about disenfranchisement we have to fix our prison system so that people are a lot more comfortable with convicted felons voting.

-Monica Lyons


“Last year, a private prison in Arizona didn’t meet their 97 percent capacity quota, so the state government had to pay them a $3 million fine.”

Ortega, Bob. “Arizona prison oversight lacking for private facilities.” The Arizona Republic. Gannett Company, 7 Aug. 2011. Web.

“Since then, we’ve gone from 350 college-degree programs for people in prison across the country, to just 12!”

Zoukis, Christopher. “Pell Grants for Prisoners: New Bill Restores Hope of Reinstating College Programs.” Prison Legal News. Human Rights Defense Center, 31 Jul. 2015. Web.

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“And good luck getting into the programs that do exist. The largest prison training program in the country has a waiting list of 10,000 people!”

Horwitz, Sari. “U.S. official says prison system’s best reentry program cut ‘dramatically.’” Washington Post. Nash Holdings LLC, 29 Oct. 2015. Web.

*Now here is why there race and gender matters. Only a Minority would be able to notice when a system is built to destroy them. A white CIS male would have people believe that minorities need to stop complaining about what we believe are malpractice and be content with what we have.