Human beings have made tremendous progress in human relations in recent decades. Many of us have learned that it is wrong to hate and discriminate against racial minorities, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, women, etc. We have learned the importance of extending equal opportunity for all and judging people, in the words of Martin Luther King, “by the content of their character,” and not on stereotypes of the groups to which they belong.

However, there is at least one group which is legally discriminated against all over the world— prisoners and ex-convicts. Ex-convicts are legally discriminated against in housing, education, employment and every other area.

Once upon a time, at least in theory, those convicted of crimes and sent to jail or prison were supposed to pay their debt to society and get on with their lives. Today, however, society clearly wants to punish ex-cons for the rest of their lives.

In many parts of the world, ex-cons do not have the right to vote. (Yet, in some countries, including Kenya, Peru and Zimbabwe, even _prisoners_have the right to vote.) In 2011, Republican Governor Terry Branstad of Iowa signed an executive order disenfranchising thousands of convicted felons.

His order reversed a six-year policy initiated by former Democratic Governor Tom Vilsack, under which convicted felons automatically regained their voting rights after their state supervision had been completed. Now, convicted felons must apply to the governor to have their voting rights restored. Such is also the case in three other states.

According to an Associated Press story appearing in The Buffalo News, since Branstad’s order, “8,000 felons in Iowa have finished their prison sentences or been released from community supervision, but less [sic] than a dozen have successfully navigated the process of applying to get their citizenship rights back. . . .”

The story featured the case of Henry Straight, an Iowa truck driver who has been trying to regain his voting rights after finishing his sentence for a felony he committed in the 1980s. The story goes:

Straight spent a year on the effort and hired a lawyer for $500 to help. Yet he was notified by the Governor’s Office [in May, 2012] that he hadn’t submitted a full credit report, only a summary, or documentation showing he had paid off decades-old court costs. “They make the process just about impossible,” said Straight, 40…. “I hired a lawyer to navigate for me, and I still got rejected. Isn’t that amazing?”

The story further reveals:

Iowa’s process also includes a 31-question application that asks for information such as the address of the judge who handled the conviction. Felons also must supply a criminal history report, which takes weeks and costs $15. Then the review can take up to six months.

Ex-cons are among those least likely to have a good credit rating. They are most likely to be poor and unable to settle their debts. For these reasons and many others, this process is totally unreasonable and totally unfair.

However, we are talking about Republicans. Republicans are most likely to favor policies that have negative effects upon voters that are poor, especially African Americans and Latinos. For example, many Republicans support legislation requiring forms of identification that poor, African American and Latino voters are least likely to have. Yet, as the trucker Henry Straight has noted, “…if you can’t vote, you are nobody.”

There has been some progress in the fight for the rights of ex-cons. For example, 33 U.S. cities have passed laws banning the question of past convictions on job applications. This way, if ex-cons are called for a job interview, they at least have the opportunity to discuss their past convictions with their prospective employers.

In Buffalo, city council majority leader Demone Smith filed a resolution calling for the City of Buffalo Law Department to amend the City Charter to ban the conviction question from job applications.

Jeffrey M. Conrad, Erie County director for the Center for Employment Opportunities, defended the move in an editorial in The Buffalo News (June 24, 2012, p. G-4.) Conrad wrote:

The facts locally are simple and telling. The City of Buffalo has more than 1,300 individuals on parole, it has a 63 percent unemployment rate among this population and only 6.6 percent are working full-time jobs above minimum wage. A full 89 percent of those unemployed will recommit a crime within three years of their release, and Buffalo is [sic] among the highest recidivism rates in New York.

What better way to re-integrate ex-cons into society than to grant them the same opportunities afforded every other citizen? How could it possibly benefit society to, for all intents and purposes, encourage ex-cons to return to a life of crime by denying them these opportunities? It is obviously in the best interests of individuals and society to give ex-cons every opportunity to re-enter society and become responsible and productive citizens. Indeed, that is part of the way in which they pay their debt to society.