I wish that we would have had some more time to discuss my topic, but I think it went well. The majority of our discussions could last for days so I was expecting that. One thing I wanted to bring up that I didn't have time to was the percentage of black men who no longer have their voting rights, about 1.4 million or 13%. I'm interested in what everyone thinks about this. I was torn between two thoughts. The first is that ex-convicts should have to deal with the consequences of their crime. The second, however, was pure astonishment that so many members of a demographic are not represented in the voting process. I'm not sure what the laws are regarding this topic, but I think that after a certain amount of time voting rights should be regained.
Another issue I wanted to bring up was the comment about the cyclic nature of this issue. (Parents go to jail, are no longer around to raise their children, these children are then "more likely" to commit crimes themselves, etc. etc.) This reminds me of the cycle of low-income families and a lack of education. In my FYS (The Quest for Educational Equality in America) we discussed this at length and it really interests me as a possible venue for our service project. I know we haven't really started sharing our ideas yet but this article presented a good motivator for me to start brainstorming.