The consequences of official labels: a research note on rights lost by the mentally ill, mentally incompetent, and convicted felons.

While labeling theorists have focused on the informal stigma suffered by officially designated deviants, research has been less extensive on the formal legal rights lost upon state labeling. In this light, this study presents a survey of state statutes which focused on the legal rights lost by felons, the mentally incompetent, and the mentally ill. Five areas of rights (voting privileges, holding public office, jury duty, parenting, and divorce) restricted to the mentally ill and incompetent are examined in state statutes and contrasted with the findings of an earlier study of lost rights for felons by Burton, Cullen, and Travis (1987).