Yes
The question of whether prisoners should be given or denied the right to vote ultimately comes down to what it is that we, as a society, hope to achieve through their incarceration.
Much of the contention surrounding the debate stems from a difference in public opinion about what the function of a prison should be. Some believe that prisons should exist purely to punish those who have been convicted of crimes in hope of deterring them from reoffending. Others believe that prisons should be about rehabilitation; places to create opportunities for healing and personal transformation otherwise absent in the often highly dysfunctional, damaged lives of many prisoners.
For those who believe that prison is fundamentally about punishment, it follows that their belief that removing the voting rights of prisoners is a necessary part of the punishment. However, for those who believe that prison needs to be about more than just punishment, not only for the good of the prisoner but for society as a whole, then the right of prisoners to vote is absolutely necessity.
Before attending a talk with Erwin James, a Guardian columnist who served twenty years of a life sentence for murder, I hadn’t really thought much about the question of whether prisoners should have voting rights. I’m sure I’m not alone in often finding myself wrapped up in the politics that affect me directly. Over the last couple of years I’ve been almost obsessed with government policy on further and higher education and I know I wasn’t the only student who suddenly became a hell of a lot more politically active when an increase on university fees was proposed. In comparison, political questions about the function of British prisons, and the innately linked questions surrounding prisoners voting rights, seemed frankly irrelevant to me.
Yet after being confronted with James’ story I realised just how wrong I was. As he spoke, at times with difficulty, about his life before he was imprisoned, his life on the inside, and his life since being released in 2004, it struck me that the fate of prisoners in Britain is, actually, hugely relevant to each and every one of us. If we want to achieve anything by means of incarceration then we cannot allow the sole purpose of sentencing someone to prison to remain as a punishment; instead it must also serve as a place where rehabilitation can begin.
Without the all-important rehabilitation process it becomes increasingly difficult for prisoners to adapt to life within the norms of society, often hindering them from escaping the vicious circle of crime. If voting rights were given to prisoners, politicians would take the interests of the 90,000 inmates currently in Britain more seriously. They would need to canvas inside prisons for votes and listen to the voices of the wide range of citizens we have behind bars. Part of this canvassing could involve a genuine focus on the long-term rehabilitation of the individual. This in turn could lead to reduced numbers of re-offenders and a society with fewer criminals and fewer prisoners.
No
Should prisoners have the right to vote? At first, the answer seems obvious. After all, I agree that voting is a right, not a privilege. Moreover, I agree that to deny prisoners this right may well foster alienation, when the aim should rather be reintegration.
However, principles are not always easily translated into the realities of life. Indeed, as we shift from the philosophical utopia of concepts about right and wrong to our practical dystopia of what works and what doesn’t, such principles often become distorted. Proponents of prisoner enfranchisement often lay claim to the nebulous issue of ‘human rights’. If this is the case, and voting is a human right, then the belief in prisoner enfranchisement must be absolute; to deny some prisoners the right to vote and not others is to invoke a level of invidious hypocrisy that should not be endorsed by anybody, not least the state.
Who is to say which prisoners can and cannot have the right to vote? Which prisoners are we to consider worthy, and which unworthy? To tackle such questions, a threshold would have to be set, most likely based on sentence, which would be unescapably arbitrary – not least because prisoner sentences themselves are often so disproportionate.
For instance, Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, both in their early 20s and with no previous convictions, were sentenced to four years in prison for using Facebook to try to incite a riot which never happened. Meanwhile, former Labour MP David Chaytor had to spend a mere 4 months in prison despite fraudulently claiming over £20,000 at the taxpayer’s expense. Before such inconsistencies in our justice system have been addressed, any such threshold would be far from just.
It is fair to say that giving the vote to all prisoners is unrealistic. Indeed, by going against the view of the vast majority of most voters – who don’t seem too keen on giving the vote to those serving life sentences – such a policy would, somewhat ironically, be considered distinctly undemocratic. Thus we are presented with the paradox of prisoner enfranchisement in British society. Undemocratic on one level, for the reasons stated above, but on another level, undeniably democratic, because it extends the principle of universal suffrage.
Democracy may be based above all on inclusion, but no one believes that this inclusion should be absolute. Few believe, for example, that under-18s should have the vote. Such a comparison between youths and prisoners is not to sound patronising, it is merely a reflection of how society conceives prisoners. We question the judgement of both prisoners and youths and thus restrict their liberty, albeit in different ways and to different extents. Whilst citizens of a democratic society are to be treated as responsible, trustworthy and equal, prisoners are considered to be none of these things.
If democracy is based on inclusion, then prison is based above all on exclusion, and thus, until the latter is reformed or at the very least reconceptualised, the two are fundamentally incompatible.
Interesting points of view but I believe that the area that concerns most British people is the ECtHR overriding a sovereign parliaments decision rather than giving votes to prisoners, most of whom would not use them.
Voting is not a fundemental right and the ECtHR attempt to widen its areas of competence should be resisted at all costs.
It seems to me that at the very least, any prisoners that could potentially be released back into the community in the period after the next election (but before the one after that) should be allowed to vote in the next election.
Furthermore, there are certain offences – especially ones that are considered victimless crimes – that simply should not be punishable in the first place. Perhaps allowing prisoners to vote would allow some of them to campaign for political parties that seek to change such unjust laws.
Sam, surely we could draw lines of inclusion and exclusion relating to what crimes people have been convicted for. Exclude all those who have been convicted for murder, paedophilia and serious electoral fraud? I agree sentencing can be arbitrary, but people are sentenced for something, would that not be a better place to start.
Interesting that neither of you really touched upon re-offending rates, which are extremely high and, consequently, very costly to the taxpayer.
If one of key functions of prisons is to make our society safer, then rehabilitating criminals and easing them into a constructive part of society should surely be at the forefront of our concerns. Granted, simply giving them the vote does not do this, and an intense focus must also be placed on education. Nonetheless, engaging people in the political process would not be a bad place to start.