While some Americans feel that felons deserve to lose the right to vote when they are in prison, many Americans do not realize that they do not automatically regain this right once they are released. In the U.S. today, there are over 6 million ex-felons who either face an uphill battle in regaining this right or, depending on the state, face a lifetime ban. What this does is prevent poor minorities, who make up a bulk of this group, from having an impact on politics. This topic only recently came to light. During the 2018 elections, Florida had Amendment 4 on its ballot to end the practice, which passed with 65% of the vote. However, most Americans remain ignorant about it. If we want to prevent recidivism and allow ex-felons to lead lives outside of crime, we must stop punishing them once they are out of the criminal justice system. This assignment is going to cover three concepts: discrimination against ex-felons, democratic theory, and the injustices found in the criminal justice system. Instructions First, please read pages 323-335 (the rest is optional) of the following article (click on the link to download a PDF version of the article): Ebenstein, J.A. (2018). The geography of mass incarceration: Prison gerrymandering and the dilution of prisoners’ political representation. Fordham Urban Law Journal, 45(2), 323-372 . Then read the following article (click on the link to download a PDF version of the article): Whitt, M.S. (2017). Felon disenfranchisement and democratic legitimacy. Social Theory and Practice, 43(2), 283-311 . Essay Please write a minimum 750-word response—not including any title pages, headers, questions, etc.—that answers the following questions: Ebenstein (2018) discussed the political ramifications of felony disenfranchisement. How do rural areas benefit politically from having prisons? Why is this problematic? When it comes to felony disenfranchisement, Ebenstein (2018) argued that it “severely alters our democratic model” (p. 330). What did he mean by this? What impact has mass incarceration had on this? While Whitt (2017) stated that he does not support felon disenfranchisement, he did examine two arguments that support it. The first was what he referred to as the “new wave” defenses based on democratic theory. What are they? The other involved the concept of self-determination. What do the supporters of this claim? According to Whitt (2017), what are the costs to democracy from this policy of disenfranchisement? What conclusions did he come to? From these readings, why do you think felony disenfranchisement is considered a social problem? In what ways do you think we can rectify this? Citation Please use the following format for the in-text citations: (Ebenstein, 2018) (Whitt, 2017) Grading This assignment is worth 75 points. For more details, please refer to the Rubric: Journal Assignments Due Date This assignment must be submitted to Turnitin (via Blackboard) by 11:59pm on Sunday April 11, 2021. After that, the assignment will be marked “late” and will receive the appropriate penalty. Instructions for submitting an assignment to Turnitin can be found here