Many issues that are primary drivers of mass incarceration cannot be remedied through government solutions alone. Issues such as broken families and mental health, both forever altered by over criminalization, cannot be simply be repaired through legislation. Civil Society has the unique capability to address certain social issues that government cannot, or to address them more effectively than government can. This section also addresses issues in which over-policing attempts to fix issues that should be handled through the community.
“All three states have exceptionally harsh disenfranchisement laws. Kentucky and Virginia laws provide for a lifetime voting ban on anyone convicted of a felony; Mississippi imposes a lifetime ban for a long list of offenses, which range from perjury and theft to murder. Although Virginia law is as harsh as Kentucky’s, in practice voting rights have been considerably more expansive there since 2016.“
The Appeal Political Report
September 26, 2019
Read More“According to a poll released today by the League of Women Voters of Kentucky, a majority of Kentuckians, across political affiliation, gender and age categories, support the automatic restoration of voting rights for persons who complete their felony sentence. Overall support is 2-1 with 66% in favor and 32% opposed, according to a December 2018 statewide poll of Kentucky voters.“
League of Women Voters of Kentucky
January 17, 2019
Read More“Kentucky and Iowa are the two states that disenfranchise people convicted of all felonies for life. (Virginia law provides for this as well, but recent governors have mostly gotten around it with executive orders. Other states, like Mississippi, also permanently disenfranchise many people.) To get their rights restored, Kentuckians must apply to the governor, and few are enfranchised this way. Governor Matt Bevin restored no one’s rights during his first year in office in 2016, even though more than 300,000 Kentuckians lacked the right to vote that year, according to a report by the Sentencing Project. That’s over 9 percent of Kentucky’s voting-age population.“
The Appeal Political Report
December 6, 2018
Read More“Ralph Clark is an Oakland native and the CEO of ShotSpotter, a gunshot-detection-technology company. He believes that unreported gunshots don’t act just as symptoms of community mistrust of police—they reinforce it. “When communities see police not responding to these [gunshot] events,” he said over the phone, ‘but at the same time have the resources to respond to low-level arrests and intercepts for marijuana and stop-and-frisk, that’s a pretty cynical situation’.“
The Atlantic
November 6, 2018
Read More"They realized that they had lost 13 employees to addiction over 10 years, and that half the cases were related to opioid drugs. 'They were not fired,' Mr. Perez said. 'They were dead'."
New York Times
July 10, 2018
Read More"The trip, free of charge, was made possible by local philanthropy but also, in a way, by the power of a radio program — “Calls From Home”— that airs once a week on a tiny Kentucky radio station, WMMT....“Calls From Home,” offers prisoners’ relatives the chance to call in and record greetings that are then played from 9 to 10 p.m. on Mondays. Inmates can listen on Mp3 players that are sold at the prison commissary."
The Marshall Project
March 13, 2016
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