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Western MA Inside Out Program: The more we imprison, the less we vote

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Conor Clarke and Greg Yothers The Boston Globe The more we imprison, the less we vote May 5, 2008 FOR THE past 12 weeks, we have both been students in an Amherst College class on citizenship. Unlike most college courses, however, this one isn't held in a classroom. Each week, as part of the nationwide program Inside-Out, we meet for 2 1/2 hours in the dimly lit visiting room of the Hampshire County Correctional Facility. Half the students in the class are from the college; half are inmates at the facility. It is a class on citizenship with a cruel irony: Because of a 2000 amendment to the Massachusetts constitution disenfranchising incarcerated felons, half the students in the class cannot vote. In about a week, all of the Amherst students will leave for the summer; many will volunteer for a presidential campaign...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on May 08, 2008 (boomark / email).