I think it’s punitive. Felonies are (or should be) truly serious crimes, the worst of the worst — if a crime doesn’t warrant permanently branding someone as outside the norms of civil society, then it shouldn’t be a felony. There should of course also be a process for truly repentant and changes felons to earn back their privileges, but it shouldn’t be easy.

I think that there’s a good argument that we have too many felonies which aren’t actually truly vile crimes. But I also don’t believe that Robert Hansen, John Gotti or the Unabomber should be voting.