IF he has completed his sentence (including parole), and can convince the relevant officials that you're now a solid citizen and no longer a threat -- it shouldn't be automatic. And I would make it a one-shot deal -- if you petition to have your rights restored, and then are convicted of another felony, that's it. You already burned your second chance.
My dad's been in corrections for almost 40 years, and the dirty little secret is that rehabilitation does work -- obviously not for everyone, and obviously not every time, but a good program can cut the number of released felons who land back in prison from two in three to one in three. And that's not some airy-fairly liberal notion -- ask Mike Huckabee and Chuck Colson.
It's really not all that difficult to tell who's reformed and who hasn't, even though criminals are manipulative and lie as naturally as they breathe. When in doubt, reject the proposal and ask the felon to come back after a couple more clean years.
And there are, at least in some states, multiple steps to restore different rights -- for example, it's less dangerous (at least arguably) to allow a felon to vote or serve as an officer of a publicly-traded company than to own guns. I believe Georgi has one process for restoration of other rights, and a separate one for gun rights.
The bottom line is that it takes human judgment to make the determination -- and human judgment has never been more unfashionable in the criminal "justice" system than it is today. It's obvious to all of us that a flasher is not the same as a stalker, and a 20-year-old who has a back-seat rendezvous with a 17-year-old girlfriend is less dangerous than a pedophile. But they're side-by-side on the sex offender registry, because our half-assed Solons love lists and metrics and guidelines they can use to try to take all compassion, judgment and common sense out of the system.
Gee, can you tell this is a pet cause of mine?
If he has completed his sentence, including parole, then he shouldn’t have to persuade any one of anything. He has completed his sentence, he’s done.
If he still has steps to complete then he hasn’t paid his debt to society, has he?
Rehab won’t work if society keeps its boot on the ex con’s neck, now will it?
If he can’t be trusted with the vote or with a gun then perhaps he shouldn’t be out of prison, should he?
If that were true than we’d see every state adopting these magical programs to cut recidivism. Your dad sounds a lot like the guys who run my state’s community correction centers. I’ve been working in the criminal justice system a lot of years and have visited some of these facilities and talked to a lot of the people that run them. I’ve even heard one say “the dirty little secret is that rehabilitation does work,” as he was giving his spiel about how great community correction centers are. Recidivism rates are lower from these facilities. They do focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment, which I think is a good thing. They try to stop some of the things like the prison drug trade and prison rape and these are noble efforts. Prison I think in many cases makes people worse than they were when they went in. But, they take far too much credit for their lower recidivism rates. They think it’s because of their “moral recognition therapy” classes or whatever it is they teach, but the fact of the matter is that the biggest factor in why they have lower recidivism rates is that they start with inmates that are less likely to continue in their life of crime. These are only relatively short term commitments. They don’t let in violent offenders, sex offenders, or people convicted of the more serious crimes. They even look at people’s past misdemeanor records to determine eligibility. Those convicted of more serious crimes, like those that carry a potential punishment of life in prison, can’t get in. That knocks out all the people who get convicted of selling tiny amounts of meth or any other Schedule I or Schedule II drugs. Not only that but if people screw up bad enough while they are in one of these facilities they’ll get transferred to a regular prison to finish out there time and not be factored in when the recidivism rate for community correction centers is calculated. Also, prosecutors usually aren’t going to offer community corrections sentences to career criminals who have been in a lot of trouble. Quite often these are young first offenders, far from being hardened criminals. It should be no surprise at all that they are less likely to recidivate than people coming out of regular prisons. It has little to do with the fancy programs. If you can come up with a fancy program that will “cut the number of released felons who land back in prison from two in three to one in three,” and actually do that well with all those convicted rather than just a select few, please let us all know about that program so that we can reduce crime and slash our prison expenses.