Prisoners deserve the vote
Manu Bhardwaj
EVANSTON, Ill.
"Our best teacher is history," said Eugene Pencham, Chicago civil rights attorney and judge.
The roots of apartheid in South Africa can probably be traced to the Dutch invasion, when the Europeans' superior weapons and technology overwhelmed the area's native inhabitants.
For the next 300 years, blacks in South Africa slowly won back their inalienable rights from their oppressors. They won back the right to give their children some semblance of an education. They won back the right to buy and drive cars. They won back the right to work in decent, upper-level jobs. In fact, by 1994, they had won back all of their rights — except one.
You can often judge a commodity's value by the extent that those who have it don't want to give it to those who don't have it. Six years ago, blacks in South Africa finally won the most important right of all: the right to vote.
Eugene Pencham said to a curious audience Monday, "What did South Africa's blacks do finally when they got the right to vote? Why, they elected an ex-convict who had been in prison for 27 years!"
That's right. They elected Nelson Mandela.
Now, stay with me for a minute.
America contains only 5 percent of the world's population, but houses 25 percent of its prisoners. I can't help but wonder how many prisoners in the United States are like Mandela. That is, how many are unfairly incarcerated?
Ask yourself this simple question: If 13 men have been released from Illinois' Death Row, three of whom were freed based on new evidence found by Protess and Northwestern journalism students, is it really unreasonable to assume that there are hundreds of Illinois prisoners serving regular jail sentences who also are innocent?
Yet given the possibility that our justice system is incapable of proving true guilt or innocence, there still are no candidates for public office paying attention to the plight of prisoners who are serving jail times for crimes they did not commit.
Why?
Because, just like Mandela, none of our prisoners has the right to vote. That's right. Despite the fact that the 15th Amendment says "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States," we are consistently denying U.S. prisoners the right to vote in all U.S. elections.
I am not arguing that people who kill and rob other people don't deserve to go to jail. What I am saying is that people in jail deserve to vote, for two reasons:
1) Innocent people are serving time in jail for crimes they did not commit. The only way politicians will start paying attention to them is if they are given back the right to vote.
2) Even though U.S. citizens who kill and rob other people deserve to go to jail, all citizens still deserve the right to vote in America.
Although giving the vote to innocent people in jail won't change the justice system overnight, it will give those innocent people a voice and a means to try to change the system.
This column first appeared in the Daily Northwestern at Northwestern University. It is reprinted here courtesy of the U-WIRE.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Friday, February 11, 2000
