Locked Out

Want to participate in your democracy? In many states, ex-felons need not apply.

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Nearly 800,000 Americans are on parole. Add in those on probation, and the total is more than 5 million.

48 states prohibit prisoners from voting. 30 states also exclude felons on probation. In Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, and Virginia, certain ex-felons lose their voting privileges for life.

13% of black men currently have no voting privileges.

5.3 million Americans will not have the right to vote this November due to felony convictions.

In 2000, 614,000 ex-felons lived in Florida. The state went to Bush by 537 votes.

Ex-felons can be prohibited from becoming bus drivers, exterminators, dental hygienists, bartenders, cemetery managers, and nursing-care attendants.

In the 2003-04 school year, 29,000 former drug felons were denied student loans. But robbers and rapists were still eligible.

Drug felons in 18 states are permanently banned from receiving welfare.

Public housing programs can evict an entire family based on one member’s past drug felony conviction.

Because the 2000 census counted Americans based on where they “live and sleep most of the time,” 44,326 New York City residents were tallied as living in parts of the state where they were imprisoned.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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