A fundamental aspect of the Social Contract is, in exchange for protecting its citizens’ rights, the people comply with the government’s laws. A simple foundation for society. Because this is an established principle that has had success, a functionalist stance would be in favor of felony disenfranchisement. It provides a sturdy repercussion for breaking the contract through forbidding them from partaking in a government whose laws they disregarded. Yet, the reality of disenfranchisement is not as cut and dry. Felony disenfranchisement currently affects around 6 million citizens or 2.5% of the voting population. Of those incarcerated, minority groups are grossly overrepresented. This leads to exploitive use of disenfranchisement. Suddenly, significant portions of minority groups are unable to vote. That's the primary criticism of the punishment. However, this isn't a flaw of disenfranchisement, but rather incarceration rates. In an environment where all incarcerations are fair, it's completely sensical that those who break the social contract have less influence over the government than those who abide by its laws. That's the basic purpose of disenfranchisement; without being as extreme as a civil death, where a person loses all civil …show more content…
They could see it as unjust. More likely, however, people would feel felons are not deserving of equal vote when they themselves have not committed any felonies. Additionally, managing to remove felony disenfranchisement won't solve any major issues. It will increase minority representation which is great except, these people are still labeled as convicted felons. The likelihood that they can gain a well paying job if any as an ex-convict is greatly decreased. Thus, their ability to improve themselves is crippled. In order for real change to occur, something needs to be fixed well before disenfranchisement