Does Punishment Ever End? All Too Often, the Answer is No

Anyone who has been convicted of a felony, or knows someone who has been convicted of a felony, has come face to face with the sad truth that America is rarely a land of second chances. Once convicted of a felony offense, the “collateral consequences” can be confusing and unending.

And let’s not forget that “felony” covers a wider and wider range of actions and behaviors, including (in certain jurisdictions) such heinous crimes as writing a bad check, failure to return a rental vehicle, and my personal favorite: “mayhem.” (What the heck is mayhem, anyway? Sounds like a third grade classroom after the kids have had too much soda and candy.)

A new report from The Sentencing Project, “Relief From the Collateral Consequences of a Criminal Conviction: A State-by-State Resource Guide,” goes a long way to clearing up some of the confusion about just what these continuing consequences are.

Be warned – it’s not cheerful reading, and the author, Margaret Colgate Love, is brutally honest when she states: “As a practical matter…in most jurisdictions people convicted of a crime have no hope of ever being able to fully discharge their debt to society.”

But the report does give us some solid information. It’s up to us to use this information for common-sense reform efforts to change hellish and half-witted policies that do little to reduce crime, and do a lot to perpetuate inequality and hopelessness.