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The Reframing of Mass Incarceration and the Right to Vote

Nonprofit Quarterly Apr 30, 2019
This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
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The Reframing of Mass Incarceration and the Right to Vote
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Giving Compass’ Take:

• Ruth McCambridge at Nonprofit Quarterly reports that as a nation we are facing a mass incarceration crisis that destroys families and communities.

• How can philanthropists tackle mass incarceration? How can funders improve the health of imprisoned persons? 

• Here’s more on mass incarceration in 2019. 


Anchoring a narrative in fear is an old but effective strategy that can easily obfuscate the facts if someone does not step in and take the time to firmly reframe. That’s perhaps why US Representative Ayanna Pressley is getting so much press for the way she has objected to the rhetoric being used to block the voting rights of prisoners in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts, along with 47 other states, does not allow prisoners to vote. Recently, faced with a question about whether she would support the voting rights of, for instance, Dzokhar Tsarnaev, the man convicted of the Boston Marathon bombing, Pressley’s reaction was to take apart the assumptions behind the question.

Pressley, who has vowed to back the platform of the Movement for Black Lives, which includes a plank on supporting the voting rights of prisoners, objected strongly to the use of the city’s trauma to demonize all those incarcerated and essentially disenfranchise them for life. She took the issue on in a way that was both personal and informed in a series of tweets last Thursday: “Pundits, if you want to talk about re-enfranchising folks, let’s talk. Did you know in my state there wasn’t a law on the books that explicitly banned those incarcerated from voting until 2001? That law was a fearful response to those on the inside at MCI Norfolk ORGANIZING.”

Read the full article on reframing mass incarceration and the right to vote by Ruth McCambridge at Nonprofit Quarterly. 

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Interested in learning more about Human Rights? Other readers at Giving Compass found the following articles helpful for impact giving related to Human Rights.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Philanthropy And The Death Penalty

    Savvy philanthropists know that change takes time. Whatever your political or philosophical beliefs, moving the legal or cultural norms of a country is no mean feat. A case in point: the campaign against the death penalty in the United States. It’s an effort to change deeply entrenched values and policy in the face of very long odds. The modern history of the fight to abolish the death penalty in the United States began in 1976 when the Supreme Court restored capital punishment, after having ruled in 1972 that as then structured it was unconstitutional. In the decades following its restoration, which were marked with widespread concern about law and order, a large majority of Americans supported capital punishment and states continued to impose and administer it. So why did Atlantic Philanthropies—one of the nation’s biggest foundations—decide to invest nearly $60 million over 10 years in a campaign to end the death penalty in the United States? Policy change on this issue has been striking, though Atlantic’s ultimate goal remains far from being achieved. Since 2007, seven states have abolished the death penalty, at least partially due to campaigns funded by Atlantic. Four other states have placed formal or informal moratoriums on executions. In 2015, states carried out the lowest number of executions (28) and new death sentences (in the mid-50s) in modern history. Other factors besides philanthropy have played a role, such as dramatically lower crime rates in many jurisdictions, as well as highly publicized mistakes, including exonerations based on DNA evidence and botched executions. While advocates continue to hope for a Supreme Court ruling abolishing the death penalty, there is no way to predict if or when this will happen. Read the source article at Forbes Welcome


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