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About This Book
ISBN13: 9781565849662 |
Review-a-Day (What is Review-a-Day?)
"Conned could have used a little more of the messy history of voting in this country, and a little less of the travelogue. Still, it is an alarming look at what the war on crime and war on drugs have wrought, and how the expansion of the prison population changes the meaning of American citizenship. This is also a story about race...and it is a frightening reminder that as a society we have not come nearly as far as we like to think." Anna Godbersen, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
"It seems when you're convicted of a felony, the scarlet letter is there. You take it everywhere with you." — Jamaica S., a twenty-five-year-old on probation in Tennessee who lost her right to vote
More than four million Americans, mainly poor, black, and Latino, have lost the right to vote. In some states, as many as a third of all African American men cannot take part in the most basic right of a democracy. The reason? Felony disenfranchisement laws, which remove the vote from people while they are in prison or on parole, and, in several states, for the rest of their lives.
Award-winning journalist Sasha Abramsky takes us on a journey through disenfranchised America, detailing the revival of antidemocratic laws that came of age in the post-Civil War segregationist South, and profiling Americans who are fighting to regain the right to vote. From the Pacific Northwest to Miami, with stops in a dozen states in between, Abramsky shows for the first time how this growing problem has played a decisive role in elections nationwide — from state races all the way up to the closely contested 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.
With a new national Right to Vote campaign having just helped to overturn Iowa's felony disenfranchisement laws and similar campaigns under way in eight other states, this book comes at a time when many Americans have begun to recognize these laws as a fundamental threat to democracy.
Synopsis:
Synopsis:
In Virginia, over 300,000 are without the right to vote.
Between half and three-quarters of a million Floridians are voteless because of past felony convictions. Had 1 percent of these individuals voted in 2000, splitting sixty-forty for Gore, the Democrats would have won the White House.
In Washington, where the 2004 governor's race came down to a handful of votes, almost 200,000 are voteless.
Synopsis:
About the Author
What Our Readers Are Saying
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jes, June 13, 2006 (view all comments by jes)
As Americans, we want to see ourselves as the good guys?the defenders of freedom, democracy, and justice around the world. Yet here we are, creating a patchwork quilt of confusing and Byzantine laws, that make it impossible for millions of our own citizens to participate fully.
In Conned, journalist Sasha Abramsky exposes our country's dark underbelly and lets us see these disenfranchised Americans as real people, some of whose crimes are pitifully minor--being in the wrong place at the wrong time, sitting in the car when a friend committed a criminal act, or possessing a couple of joints. There are examples of youthful indiscretions or accidents similar to those committed by our first Family (vehicular manslaughter, substance abuse, forged prescriptions) which can result in a lifetime of disenfranchisement if one has the bad luck to be born to a poor family in the wrong state.
When Abramsky interviews someone who did commit a serious crime and has served his or her time and paid the fines, he questions whether preventing them from voting for the rest of their lives does us a favor or disservice. The stories range from the wistful, to the angry, to the resigned who simply don?t believe anything can possibly change for them.
This is a book about class and racial injustice as much as anything else. We may have eliminated slavery and Jim Crow laws on the surface, but Abramsky clearly spells out how the rule of law conspires to keep many of our citizens in a permanent underclass. It is no longer fashionable to use the N-word or to publicly make racist statements, but the continued failure to update these restrictions prevent many from turning their lives around or achieving their potential.
The bottom line--if we want the disaffected to transform and become productive members of society, they need to have some "skin in the game." What is the point of young Americans dying to bring freedom to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, when we systematically deny those fundamental rights to those here at home?
It is impossible to read this book and not feel deep sadness and outrage. I told a friend about the book who expressed surprise that convicted felons wanted to vote. An hour later, she brought up the subject to me, ?I?ve never even thought of this as something to consider.? Without a book like Conned, I suspect most people never will.
J.E. Schwartz, Author, Doublethink: A Tale of Unintended Consequences
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9781565849662
- Subtitle:
- How Millions Went to Prison, Lost the Vote, and Helped Send George W. Bush to the White House
- Author:
- Author:
- Publisher:
- New Press
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- United states
- Subject:
- Suffrage
- Subject:
- Political Freedom & Security - Civil Rights
- Subject:
- Government - U.S. Government
- Copyright:
- 2006
- Publication Date:
- April 28, 2006
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 288
- Dimensions:
- 8.48x5.90x1.07 in. 1.07 lbs.
