More than one and half million African American men, or 14 percent of the total black voting population, are today legally barred from casting a ballot in local and national elections. That’s the startling conclusion of a new report out this past week by The Sentencing Project, a Washington DC based group that promotes sentencing reform and conducts research on criminal justice issues. The report, entitled Intended and Unintended Consequences: Racial Disparities in Imprisonment, also found that an African American man is seven times more likely to go to jail than a white man.

Joining is to discuss the new report is Marc Mauer, the assistant director of The Sentencing Project and the author of Intended and Unintended Consequences: Racial Disparities in Imprisonment. Also here to discuss the report’s conclusions is Eddie Ellis, president of the Community Justice Center, a research and advocacy organization for ex-offenders based in Harlem, New York.