Giving Compass' Take:

• Hanna Hoover, at SSRN, provides an in-depth analysis of how reinstating civil rights among formerly incarcerated individuals reduces the likelihood of recidivism.

• How can we support research on what can prevent formerly incarcerated individuals from re-offending? What are you doing to support equitable criminal justice reform?

• Learn more about generating economic mobility among justice-involved individuals.

When a person is convicted of a felony offense, they lose the right to vote, the candidacy to sit on a jury, the ability to hold public office, and the right to own firearms. In addition, civil rights revocation also denies the eligibility of certain occupational licenses and state-funded scholarships. It is unknown, a priori, if civil right status influences labor market outcomes, voting behavior, or educational attainment, any of which may affect incentives for convicted felons to re-offend. As an aggregate measure of these channels, I analyze the casual link between civil rights restoration and rates of recidivism. To establish this relationship, this paper uses variation in the Rules of Executive Clemency, which affect an ex-felons’ ability to restore their civil rights. I find that restoring an individual’s civil rights reduces their probability to recidivate by 18 percentage points, which translates to a reduction in the overall recidivism rates by 1 percentage point.

Read the full report on civil rights for formerly incarcerated individuals by Hanna Hoover at SSRN.