[quote=“Loretta”]
I’ve heard, but I’m not claiming it’s true, that convicted felons in the USA are not allowed to vote. In the UK you can (or could) even be elected to parliament while locked up in jail.[/quote]
Varies from state to state- some do, some don’t
I know for some convictions in Canada such as, to pick one totally at random and which has no personal connection whatsoever, possession of marijuana, it’s wiped after seven years; and you can apply for a clean record earlier.
This just in:
[quote]The American Civil Liberties Union is accusing federal prosecutors of ethnic bias in a sting last summer in which South Asian owners of convenience stores in Georgia were charged with selling household ingredients that could be used to make methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug.
In a legal filing, the A.C.L.U. said yesterday that prosecutors ignored extensive evidence that white-owned stores were selling the same items to methamphetamine makers and focused instead on South Asians to take advantage of language barriers.
The sting sent informants to convenience stores in six counties in rural northwest Georgia beginning in 2003 to buy ingredients that can be used to make the drug
And…
[quote]Eric Muller is also correct in noting the problems with U.S. v. Armstrong. The Supreme Court has created a nice Catch-22. One the one hand, defendants need evidence of individualized discrimination, not just evidence of systematic discrimination. On the other, because of Armstrong, for all but the most deep-pocketed defendants obtaining evidence of such discrimination is made much more difficult. Justice Stevens, in his (shamefully solo) dissent in Armstrong explains:
Finally, it is undisputed that the brunt of the elevated federal penalties falls heavily on blacks. While 65% of the persons who have used crack are white, in 1993 they represented only 4% of the federal offenders convicted of trafficking in crack. Eighty eight percent of such defendants were black. Id., at 39, 161. During the first 18 months of full guideline implementation, the sentencing disparity between black and white defendants grew from preguideline levels: blacks on average received sentences over 40% longer than whites. See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sentencing in the Federal Courts: Does Race Matter? 6-7 (Dec. 1993). Those figures represent a major threat to the integrity of federal sentencing reform, whose main purpose was the elimination of disparity (especially racial) in sentencing. The Sentencing Commission acknowledges that the heightened crack penalties are a "primary cause of the growing disparity between sentences for Black and White federal defendants."[/quote]
How they do it in Denmark. Or did, a few years ago.
I’ve never really thought about this issue much, but it’s an interesting way to measure how well a society is doing.
White on Black crime in the US.
