The state of has been increasingly accused of being making more money off of the incarceration of its citizens that it does growing and distributing orange juice. If that seems funny to you I assure you that it is a very serious statement and sad commentary on Florida’s concern with upholding the Constitution of the United States.

There are many facets of this issue that will be revealed in in the coming weeks beginning with this article’s focus today of Florida’s stripping all convicted felons of their rights, especially the right to vote. Upon further scrutiny, we have discovered that there is more than just the profit motive at work here. Florida’s policy of creating this massive population of “non-voters” has ultimately had a tremendous rippling effect on  political elections, especially the 2000 and 2004 Presidential election whereby George Bush literally cheated the American people, stealing the Presidency.

The actual impact of felon disenfranchisement is greater than at any point in our history. Current laws disenfranchise approximately 3.9 million voting-age citizens, of whom roughly 1.4 million have completed their sentences. When disqualified citizens on probation or parole are added to those who have completed their sentences, nearly three-quarters of the excluded are not in prison.

The potential effects of this massive exclusion were driven home by the close 2000 presidential race in Florida as there are more disenfranchised people there than any other state—about 827,000 people. Of those, slightly more than 600,000 people had completed their sentences and were entirely discharged from the criminal justice system.

In 2000, about 10.5 percent of the state’s adult black population was disenfranchised, compared with 4.4. percent of the non-black population. George Bush ostensibly won the state by 530-something votes! If ex-offenders had been permitted to vote at the same rate as their equally poor and badly educated but not convicted compatriots, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore would have carried Florida by more than 31,000 votes.

Florida’s policy has created a totally new segment of the population, that of the “Civil Dead,” who reside somewhere between inmate and citizen. The innate problem that is created with these actions is that society still demands that released felons return to normalcy or to a “rehabilitated state” which the policy makes impossible.

Does this sound like a set-up for failure? Can we realistically expect things to change for the better is a very large portion of our population is not allowed to be heard?

Florida will have to decide whether imposing an archaic morality on our citizens that have erred, turning them into the civil dead is a winning strategy and is producing the ultimate results we desire.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?