The National Institute of Justice states there are 44,000 documented rights a person with a felony conviction loses. There are things their families are not allowed to do for them as well. For instance, those with prior felony convictions cannot live in public housing with their families, serve as caretakers to their parents, or adopt children, Simpson pointed out from the report. They are also ineligible for certain types of health insurance.
“[The insurance companies] will not fund you because they feel like you are high risk,” Simpson says, “Justice-impacted people make up 93 percent of the homeless population in the city of Atlanta. I know the area where our office is nested, in Mechanicsville, has the highest rate of incarceration, at 94 percent and 93 percent for recidivism.”
While the overall impact of politics is difficult to measure, the strain on mental health is well-documented. A February 2024 Pew Research Center poll found that 65 percent of U.S. adults always or often felt exhausted by politics and 55 percent always or often felt angry. Atlanta therapist, Latrice Lewis of Wellspring Counseling, Coaching and Transitions, has noticed an uptick in distress in her patients. “There’s an increase for a lot of people in general depression and anxiety,” Lewis said.
Project 2025 in particular has opened up a new avenue of anxiety, according to Lewis. With proposals that roll back the rights and protections of marginalized communities, Lewis says that she is hearing concerns about safety she hasn’t heard before. “Are they safe out in their community, especially from people who strongly support a candidate’s views? Am I safe if a candidate is in office? Am I safe if these people who feel like they have a platform or voice now no longer have to hide their anger or their hate? I see that issue a lot.”
The impact of this fear has caused some to “lose connection to self-care.” Lewis says she recommends that her patients “limit their exposure to it, while not being ignorant.”
Clinician and trauma specialist, Imani Evans, has experienced both sides of this issue. After her felony conviction, Evans was not sure whether she could or couldn’t be a part of the civic process.
“It was humiliating,” she recalls.
Experiencing that humiliation gives her a unique perspective on what her justice-impacted clients are experiencing.
“The inability to participate in the voting process can have a profound and traumatic effect on justice-impacted people. It’s a significant loss of a political voice, for both the individual and the community.”
According to an October report by The Sentencing Project, an organization that advocates for reducing imprisonment, almost 250,000 Georgians cannot vote because of a felony conviction, which is more than 3 percent of the voting-eligible population. Nationwide, that number is 4 million.
