The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

He maintained that, “Once a prisoner serves his or her debt to society, the state should automatically restore his or her civil rights so that the ex-offender may vote and become gainfully employed."

Under the new rules, more ex-offenders are eligible to regain their civil rights without a hearing before the Clemency Board after they complete their sentences. Others are subject to higher levels of scrutiny and in many instances will require a hearing.

Recent trends suggest the vast majority of rights restoration cases that now go to hearing ultimately will be denied.

The Department of Corrections advised that, from April 5 to Oct. 10, it reviewed 600,000 ex-offender case files that date back to 1980. About 150,000 appeared to be eligible for rights restoration without a hearing. All of the rights restoration case files are sent to the Parole Commission, which serves as the investigative arm of the Clemency Board, for further review. In addition to the historical cases, about 3,000 ex-offenders are released from DOC custody every month.

It was reported that 35,000 ex-offenders regained their civil rights since the new rules were adopted. State officials claim that more ex-offenders regained their civil rights during this period than during any other comparable period in recent memory. Despite this progress and setting aside independent studies that indicate there may be as many as 950,000 ex-felons residing in Florida without their civil rights, it may nevertheless take years to process all of the pending cases.

Crist's efforts to change certain aspects of the rights-restoration process were laudable but it is now abundantly clear that the governor and Cabinet must revisit and reengineer that process to achieve more comprehensive reform.

Two fundamental problems must be addressed:

Employment restrictions: Ex-offenders are ineligible for a wide array of state occupational licenses and jobs that require state certification unless they can demonstrate that their civil rights have been restored.

Florida appellate courts have been critical of this misplaced reliance upon rights restoration. Employment eligibility issues and related public-safety concerns that may correspond to any given job must be separated from clemency deliberations and redirected to state regulatory agencies and licensing boards where they could be more effectively addressed. The rights restoration process was never intended to serve this larger purpose.

Gov. Bush's Ex-Offender Task Force recommended such a course of action in late 2006 in an effort to remove some of the arbitrary barriers to post-release employment which, in turn, would help to reduce relatively high recidivism rates. The Legislature passed a bill this year that implemented these Task Force recommendations within the construction industry.

Rather than wait until next spring for the Legislature to consider whether to expand these provisions to all occupational licenses and jobs that require state certification, Crist can sign an executive order at any time directing the agencies and boards that he oversees to implement these recommendations immediately.

Bronson and Sink oversee the agencies and boards that do not report to Crist. They can issue similar directives. Legislators can revisit these matters during the next regular session to codify executive action and reconcile other laws that may be at cross-purposes with the task force recommendations.

Once the linkage between rights restoration and ex-offender eligibility for various jobs is broken, there would be no compelling need to distinguish violent offenses from non-violent offenses to determine fitness to vote. Similarly, there would be no need to subject rights-restoration cases to multiple levels of scrutiny and cumbersome and costly investigations.

Restitution rule: Significant numbers of ex-offenders owe restitution. They are currently ineligible to regain their civil rights by rule until they satisfy that obligation in full. If, as a result, they are ineligible for otherwise appropriate jobs that pay living wages and therefore unable to earn sufficient income to make restitution payments, the rule perpetuates the problem. Everybody loses, including the crime victims.

As a matter of public policy, ex-offenders should be required to pay all court-ordered restitution; however, it is counter-productive to require that it be paid-in-full as a pre-condition for rights restoration. The governor and Cabinet should repeal or substantially modify this long-standing clemency rule. Apart from clemency, the state could improve relevant enforcement mechanisms to facilitate restitution payments along the lines of legislation that was enacted years ago to address delinquent child support payments.

Only then will civil-rights restoration in Florida reflect the kind of fundamental fairness that the governor has been talking about.