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Comment by ransom1538 | Hacker News Reader

After a prisoner has served their said time [for felons]:

1) remove their right to vote [in florida 1/4 african americans can't vote] [i]

2) force them to divulge they are felons to all new employers

3) force them to tell their neighbors they are criminals [sex crime cases which often only involve one witness testimony]

4) garnish their wages

5) seize their property [drug cases]

6) place them on parole to increase mental fear [at any moment they can return to prison without trial]

7) force them to provide random urine tests and body searches [creates anxiety for people with addiction]

8) force them into community service mixed with other felons

This is a system designed to create crime.

[i] https://theintercept.com/2016/12/22/a-quarter-of-floridas-bl...

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10) Ineligibility for many govt. subsidized programs (SBA loans being one)

11) No longer able to become a doctor, nurse, banker, most govt. jobs, etc. (Many colleges won't accept you for the program based on the low possibility of employment after graduation)

Sex offenders have quite a few extra rules. i.e. no playgrounds or places where kids are present typically. I am not against a rule saying "You cannot knowingly communicate with minors online" but excluding people from the internet is a bit extreme.

edit: 12) Unable to rent housing. A large majority of property management companies will not rent to felons...period.

Another comment further down reminded me of that.

6/7/8 are not after a prisoner has "served their said time" its an alternative to that.

Oh no, 6/7 are not just alternatives.

Parole after release is common (e.g. you're sentenced to X years, get released earlier at Y years and are now on parole for X-Y years). Depending on country, a simple traffic ticket(!) can be a parole violation, so you get why this is an issue.

Same goes for alcohol and drug testing, again often used in combination with parole.

> e.g. you're sentenced to X years, get released earlier at Y years and are now on parole for X-Y years

I think that's exactly what was meant as an "alternative" to serving their time. You state it yourself, they were sentenced to X, but only serve Y behind bars. They are offered the choice of some years outside prison but with restrictions instead of that time in prison.

The point of parole should be to prevent future criminal acts. Making "everyday crime" (like loitering, jaywalking, speeding, "driving with a broken light") a possible breach of parole defeats this purpose and thus is no alternative. It's keeping someone in constant fear.

> The point of parole should be to prevent future criminal acts.

I think you mean the point of enforcing the rules of and revoking parole is to prevent future crime? Sure. But parole, which is specifically something handed out for good behavior in prison and is in lieu of prison, is still better than prison. They are still serving a sentence, and it's not as bad as it would be in prison. There's lots of problems with how we treat felons and restrict their futures, but I do not consider strict parole rules part of that, given it's during the time allotted for their original sentence. Just because they are out of prison, doesn't mean their punishment is complete (in this case).

Put simply, in all cases I can think of, parole is better than prison, and that's what it should be compared to, because that's the other option (no parole). Comparing it to being completely free for the purpose of deciding whether it's fair is nonsensical to me.

Edit: s/Comparing it to not being/Comparing it to being/

You are wrong. Look up federal supervised release.

Source: I served it, after completing my federal sentence.

Sure there are sentences that include supervision up front and supervision that is given after sentencing as an alternative to completing the full sentence. But from the parents post that isn't in addition to "has served their said time", its part of the said time.

Are you suggesting that you got supervised release after completing your full sentence as outlined after your conviction?

For example, my sentence was 70 months prison (1 month under the maximum allowed), then 3 years supervised release (the maximum allowed for my crime). During that 3 years, if I violated any condition of supervised release (including accessing the Internet, or working as a programmer), I could have been sent back for 3 more years of prison. This is different from parole, where you are conditionally released before your original sentence is completed. In my case, they had to let me out when I completed the 70 months. They could not let me out any sooner or any later.

Right. But the supervised release was part of "your time" to use the OP's term.

I'm not arguing that this is fair, or right, or the best we can do. I'm arguing that its not a case where these specific items are tacked on "after" your time is served. The other things he mentions (loss of voter rights, loss of housing rights, etc) truly are permanent punishments.

9) remove their right to own firearms

This one is a big deal in states like Montana, where you can no longer hunt for food as a felon. And Archery is now in a gray area too, where they aren't letting felons hunt with bows either.

Are some people reliant on hunting for food?

I live in North Idaho. Many people in this area and Montana hunt exclusively for food. Every year they kill/butcher/freeze the meat and use it to supplement.

Not everyone actually gets an animal and a large portion of those people are out there to just get drunk and camp...but there are many who do rely on the additional meat to get through the year. Especially in areas like this where people tend to shy away from the govt. and their subsidies.

Is that:

(hunt exclusively) for food?

hunt (exclusively for food)?

I.e. do they get all of their food from hunting? (what GP asked) Or do they eat all that they hunt?

This is why I wish we used a postfix language. Precidence rules are always ambiguous.

Theres a lot of little and big costs associated with living in the middle of fuck all nowhere that are offset by hunting (and fishing but I'm pretty sure felons are allowed fishing poles). I dunno Montana but Alaska, Yukon, Nunavut: a lot of people are reliant reliant on wildlife.

Using a gun after being a felon is nuts. The punishments are totally absurd.

just hunting: http://www.andymboyle.com/portfolio/felons-hunting-with-guns...

in Montana, many people who are lower income are partially or heavily reliant on harvesting big game for food.

if you're a felon, ironically, often times this need is compounded because you might have limited job opportunities due to your status as a felon.

Having a deer or hog in the freezer can make a significant difference in stability for people living paycheck to paycheck. What a household spends on meat in a month is probably in the same ballpark as a lower tier internet plan.

Call me simple-minded, but if you serve the time, you should regain all rights. How is any of this constitutional? Like, how can your right to vote be removed?

The concept of universal suffrage is a relatively recent thing. Indeed, it doesn't even exist given felon disenfranchisement.

Long story short, it's constitutional because the disenfranchisement of felons was expressly contemplated by the 14th Amendment.

  But when the right to vote at any [Federal] election ... is
  denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being
  twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States,
  or in any way abridged, except for participation in
  rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation
  therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number
  of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male
  citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Technically speaking any kind of disenfranchisement is contemplated here. It's just that, excepting felons, the consequence is that a state loses representation. That said, most forms of disenfranchisement would be disallowed under Federal constitutional law for other reasons.

6) happens before conviction in a lot of cases

"After being a felon..."

Sounds like they were a criminal before that.

So rehabilitation's completely out the window then? Why take an offender and create a situation for them in which they'll be more likely to re-offend and work more closely with other criminals?

I know that personally if my vote was taken away, for example, that I'd lose a great deal of respect for and connection to the state; the meaning and validity of laws would be seriously diminished.

Yeah, that's the whole point. If you make it so a felon is essentially completely shut out from mainstream society, it will be really hard for them to not commit crime again, since they may not even be able to get a job or find a place to live. So in effect you just incentivize them being jailed again, which is bad for them and for all of society, since we have to pay for it.

Lots of felonies are completely ridiculous and cater to special interests, such as felony copyright infringement.

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