It seems at though Washington was serious about increasing civic engagement for those impacted by incarceration throughout the state. At the very beginning of this year two voting rights bills were introduced, SB 5076 was introduced by Senator Patty Kuderer. The bill would restore voting rights to over 90,000 individuals on community custody. It quickly gained co-sponsors including Senators Palumbo, Wellman, Hunt, Darneille, Hasegawa, Nguyen, Saldaña, and Pedersen. Along with this SB 5207 was introduced by Senator Manka Dhingra. This bill required the corrections department to provide individuals with voters registration information immediately at the time of their release and was co-sponsored by Senators Hunt, Saldaña, Darneille, Das, Cleveland, Kuderer, Pedersen, Salomon, Nguyen, Rolfes, Hasegawa, Keiser, and Randall. With the increasing amount of support in the Senate and among the public, both bills had a hearing before the end of the month.
I remember attending the Senate hearing for SB 5076. The room was packed with supporters. One of the questions asked by senators was whether supporters were interested in restoring the voting rights of incarcerated citizens as their next step. The Senator wanted to know whether supporters were only interested in restoring the rights of those on community custody the witnesses different in their testimony. Witnesses were hesitant to respond. It was obvious that the committee of Senators were not interested in bringing Washington state to the point of universal enfranchisement. The witnesses once pressed were divided in their response.
Willing to Enact Experimental Reforms
Historically Washington has been a leader in experimenting with radical Criminal Justice Reform tactics. It wasn’t long ago that citizens incarcerated in Washington State were allowed to wear street clothes in the prison, media could come in and programming was vibrant and robust. Washington is still one of the very few states that allow overnight visitation and has more accredited collage programs were prisoners can earn associates and bachelors degrees while serving their sentence.
Washington was also one of the states that ended probation and parole statewide during the 80s. The statewide call to end parole was said to have been in an effort to eliminate inconsistencies and racial biases of judges and parole boards where African American and Hispanic prisoners were denied at a much higher rate than that of whites. The requirements of parole were also viewed negatively, only working to hinder the development of formerly incarcerated citizens. Officers spent more time looking for what parolees were doing wrong rather than praising their successes. This resulted in the majority of parolees were sent back to prison within their first three years of release. The parole system obviously wasn’t working and so the state took the radical step to dismiss the practice all together. This could have been seen as a win for some, but to many those states that ended parole through the Sentencing Reform Act were adjusting to the national conform for ‘truth-in-sentencing laws’, legislation that did not see rehabilitation as a possibility to seek after favoring the full weight of punishment over any attempt to restoration.
Same Game by Another Name
Today the parole system has been replaced by community custody which, like probation or parole, does mandate certain activities. Like parole, as a part of community custody released participate are also required to report to a state official and can be sent back to prison for a violation in the same way.While on community custody formerly incarcerated citizens are also restricted from interacting with the incarcerated citizens that were once their peers. They restricted from sending mail letters, digital correspondence or telecommunications. They’re also not allowed to volunteer or be employed within a state prison. The eradication of the parole system didn’t do much to change how the system functions. In the same way that people on parole are monitored, restricted from certain activities and at risk of violation; those on community custody also suffer. Nothing has changed but the name of the game.
The number of people on community custody grossly expands the number of people being monitored by Washington State ’s department of Corrections from the seemingly smaller number 18,000 in prison, compared to that of other states, to over 100,000 people Like the imprisoned population, those who completed their prison sentence continue to be ineligible to vote. With the population of Blacks in Washington state being less than 3%, our political influence is already minimal. Knowing this when we look at the fact that African Americans are drastically over-represented in the prison population at 40%, that 3% of potential voters goes from being minimal to virtually non-existent. With a large number of the people in Washington that are people of color being in prison we can see how Washington functions like that of many other states were felony disenfranchisement works effectively thwart the potential political power of communities of color.
Slow congress only passes one bill at a time…
This past year organizations like civil survival, King County Coalition on Homelessness and the incarcerated workers organizing committee came together in support of restoring the voting rights of those on community custody. Now that the bill has passed one side of the legislature it awaits being reintroduced on the other side during the New year. SB 5207 was passed through both the Senate and the House by the Spring and was signed into law by the Governor on April 17, 2019. It seemed as though Washington wasn’t ready to pass both bills. The legislature reminded us that released citizens are entitled to know about their rights but are not eligible to practice them.
Washington was never afraid to try out experimental reforms in its state prisons, understanding that the developmental progress of its inmates were well worth any operational adjustment. Washington’s instance to keep overnight visits in place as well as expand its university behind bars programs also demonstrates its commitment to rehabilitation over senseless punishment. Now if Washington wants to remain on the right side of history, it’s essential that the voting tights of those on community custody be restored. The state is already behind many who have already made taken this stance and some who are fighting to remove felony disenfranchisement completely. Being under the authority of the corrections department shouldn’t disqualify someone from participating in navigating the direction of the legislation that governs their lives. No government should be comfortable with such a large portion of their population being invisible. Now that SB 5207 is in the incorporation phase, I’m looking forward to SB 5076 being reintroduced and flying through each phase of the legislative process in 2020.
