The Adjudicated Vote

I stayed up late on election night, listening to the voter returns. What an incredibly disconcerting experience listening to an election in prison. Why? Apart from obvious reasons, I would wager that a majority of the hundreds of guys here were simply unaware that an election was taking place. True, that’s not much different from society in general—a majority of Americans, though probably aware that an election was taking place (who can escape the TV ad’s?), did not even bother to vote.

The real difference is that there were also many guys in here who would have liked to vote, but neither had the means nor the will to violate institutional regulations to get registered, procure, and then send in an absentee ballot.

De jure, as adjudicated minors, wards of the state are eligible voters. But de facto, they are disenfranchised voters, denied the power of the vote by the failure of the DJJ to promote and facilitate voter registration and absentee ballot availability.

I don’t think it’s a grand conspiracy to suppress the adjudicated vote. Frankly, I don’t think the system is that smart. Nevertheless, elections have come and gone here, and nothing is said or done to advertise the fact that these guys could vote if they wanted to.

This is very sad indeed. There is nothing that exemplifies more the value of the citizen, the power of the individual, the right of the person, than the power, the right, the responsibility, the privilege of the vote. The right to the vote proclaims the right of the individual to claim a place in society, and to expect to be held to account, and hold society to account, for that place.

And so what better exercise can youthful offenders engage in to learn social responsibility, and to be invited into the rights and responsibilities of the social body?

This should be the thought of a truly rehabilitation-oriented system. It is foolish to hope for thoughts from a system such as this…and that is the truly disturbing thing: I am the only one thinking these thoughts.