The Pros And Cons Of Prisoners In The United States

Prisoners tend to be looked down upon due to their previous actions. They do their time and then life goes back to normal. Or does it? 48 out of 50 states in America do not allow prisoners to vote and 11 out of 50 take away their voting rights completely. (felonvoting.procon.org) Everybody makes mistakes and people do change. America is supposedly the land of the free, but our government is definitely doing some unjust things like not allowing prisoners to vote. As a matter of fact, there are an estimated 2.4 million prisoners behind bars in the United States alone. (economist.com) These are all for various reasons and even though some cases are worse than others; unless you live in Maine or Vermont, if you are behind bars, then you cannot …show more content…
In the Fourteenth Amendment, it states that, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,…No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” (archives.gov) This is saying that no individual state has the right to take away a persons right to vote, which is exactly what America is doing today. In the Fifteenth Amendment, it says, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude- -.” (archives.gov) The Amendments do not mention anything about if someone commits a crime and becomes a prisoner, then they should be stripped of voting rights. If someone were to do something that goes against any of the Amendments, then their citizenship rights should be taken away from them. However, inmates who have not done so are still getting their citizenship rights taken way, which is cruel and unfair. America is going against its own Constitution, which was created to establish justice. Taking away prisoners right to vote, which is not stated in the Constitution, is not just and it is