Who Else Is Owed a Break?

Many people besides children are denied a say over the law. Are they too, for the reasons described in earlier chapters, owed a break when they commit crimes? The chapter offers an explanation as to why the argument of the preceding chapters does not apply to visitors; their disenfranchisement does not support leniency towards them since their status bars them from offering the complaint about non-lenient treatment available to children. Felons, by contrast, should not be denied the vote, and so should not be given a break even though they ought to be treated more leniently if we persist in our practice of disenfranchising them. Finally, the poor and members of traditionally oppressed groups, who are prevented from exercising their entitlements to exert influence over the law, are owed lenience, despite the fact that a better solution is to remove the obstacles to the exercise of their entitlements.