Locked Out, Broken Down: Gender-Specific Estimates of State Variation in Felon Disenfranchisement.

• In Event: Marked and Marginalized: Race, Gender, and the Narratives of Legal Exclusion

Abstract

Felony disenfranchisement scholarship has estimated the size of the disenfranchised population overall and have documented its racialized impact. However, previous scholarship has not documented the gender variation in disenfranchisement between states. We create novel estimates of state-specific felony disenfranchisement by gender using state-level data on correctional populations (prison, felony probation, parole, felony jail) alongside demographic life tables tailored to each post-sentence state’s disenfranchisement law. Importantly, our life tables allow recidivism and mortality rates to vary by gender, thereby accounting for gender differences in health and reconviction over the life course. We find that, commensurate with gendered state patterns in punishment, male disenfranchisement rates are higher in every state as compared to female rates of disenfranchisement. However, the post-sentence portion of the female disenfranchisement population is significantly higher than the corresponding proportion amongst disenfranchised males. We attribute this difference to the longer life spans of women and differing rates of reconviction, as women reach post-sentence status sooner and stay in this population longer than men. Further, states with the greatest between-gender discrepancies are states that only disenfranchise those currently confined in prison or jail, indicative of the greater gender disparities in incarceration rates as compared to probation and parole.

Authors

• Molly Hauf, Minneapolis Police Department Intelligence Division

• Ryan P. Larson, Hamline University

• Robert Stewart, University of Maryland

• Sarah Shannon, University of Georgia

• Christopher Uggen, University of Minnesota