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I’d ask those of you who feel that way, has all of this crushing punishment created the results you’re looking for in a just society? Has disenfranchising more than 6 million people nationally led to a healthier democracy?
There’s something perverse about a society spending lavishly to incarcerate people, but unwilling to pay for the care people need to avoid incarceration.
But simply knowing is not enough. Current Kansas civil asset forfeiture law fails to protect Kansans from broad, unregulated overreach - and what amounts to highway robbery by the state.
African Americans routinely face this treatment from law enforcement and not just in Tonganoxie. Daily, police harass black people for stealing their own car, barbecuing in the park, or awaiting Starbucks meetings. In the system, they receive harsher sentences for similar crimes.
The 19 states with EDR enjoy the nation’s highest voter turnout, posting rates 11 percent to 12 percent higher than other states, including Kansas.
When our legal representative, the ACLU of Kansas, wrote Ford County Clerk Debbie Cox last year asking her support for a voter rights protection effort, Cox famously forwarded the letter to the Secretary of State’s office with the reply, “LOL.”