Prisoners, should they vote?

[scotty]

Or should incarceration mean no everyday civil rights such as voting?, bit of a ding dong in the Scottish Parliament about just now.

[Ghost]

IMHO those who vote should be the ones who directly suffer the consequences of an election. So they should have the same right as everyone else because they are still affected by some of them.

[Dark]

Let them vote. Once they're free, they'll be living in the same country.

[mh]

Once you start taking away basic human rights from people, you put yourself on the same level as criminals.

[boudicca]

I'm not of the opinion that they should (though I'm a bit ambivalent about it to be honest)...

... What I do find ridiculous is the idea of them getting compensation for it.

[Maisey]

I'm going to go with yes. Although its a bit off the cuff as I have never actually considered it.

But yes they should be allowed to vote, although I struggle to justify my opinion.

I suppose its a matter while they are citizens of a country, even if they are enjoying the hospitality of her majesty, they get the same basic rights as any other citizen.

[mh]

Well if it starts at prisoners, where does it end? Who will be next in the class of citizens who are not allowed to vote? I think that's justification enough.

[canon docre]

I would be interested in any argument against them being allowed to vote. I don't really get it. I mean you can get to prison for some unpaid parking tickets, does that make you an outlaw without civil rights? I don't think so.

[Brideoffrankenstein]

I was of the opinion that they shouldn't have that right, but reading everyone's arguments for prisoners to be able to vote, I changed my mind.

[Dark]

What I don't understand are people who say "Once a criminal, always a criminal" and who treat ex-convicts as pure scum. Is the idea of "serving one's time" too much to ask?

[Badlander]

Once you start taking away basic human rights from people, you put yourself on the same level as criminals.

Is the right to vote really a fundamental human right ? I'm not so sure. From a Western liberal point of view, democracy is indeed a central feature of human rights. But there are other conceptions, some of them just as valid.
But it is more a philosophic question than a political question : most of the time, when you take away democracy, human rights abuses follow very quickly.

I have the feeling that French prisons wouldn't be in such horrible condition if inmates had the right to vote. Right now, no high profile politician dares tackle the issue of inhuman detention conditions, just because they don't want to be accused of being soft on crime. That is disgraceful.

[Planet Dave]

Yes.

[DeWinter]

Breaches their basic human rights?? Oh for the love of Mike, what utter crap. Forcible incarceration breaches their human rights as well.
You'll forgive me if I have little sympathy, the average convict has a far easier time of it , and better living conditions than the average person serving in Her Majesty's Armed Forces, or has the misfortune to be elderly and in an NHS hospital or nursing home.
These people forfeited their right to participate in society by committing a crime serious enough they were judged too dangerous to remain at large. And I rather doubt, quite frankly, that their contribution will be anything worthwhile.

[itnAklipse]

They have not given up their right to participate in the society, but rather given expression to a conflict between themselves and the society of which they are a part of.
It's funny how lightly people who hail for diversity want to drive out people who don't agree with them and their standards, but this can of course be seen in any place where more than 2-3 people gather and someone has differing views. In reality the mass of people can't stand diversity...they like arabs as long as they don't live as arabs do...that is, they can only stand different colour of skin as long as their theory of colour being only skin deep is proven wrong and real differences emerge.

Criminals are hardly types that you see on television crime-series, anyway. The ones in prisons are simply for the most part total failures, complete unfortunates.

One often hears such nonsense as "they don't abide by the common rules that are the same for everyone", but no one has ever asked them whether or not they subscribe to the rules put forth by others to begin with. Life is NOT a game, nor should society be.

At any rate, in prison they are, and as such still a part of the society. Why the hell should they not vote?

Real criminals are not the unfortunates who simply can not fit in. Real criminals are something else. Like, say, Tony Blair, Ehud Olmert? George Bush? The Rothschilds? By their totally hateful and anti-social, dare i say _immoral_?, actions they have truly given up their right to take part in the life of civilized people and should thus be incarcerated without the light of day. Not these misfits that are in prisons now whose alleged immorality is of utterly lesser level.
i suppose also white collar criminals could be given much harder time, but then, there are different types of them and not all of them are of the truly malignant sort.

You know what i think is the real problem with the usual criminals who are in prison? They simply can not handle the repressive and oppressive society that is built on fakeness and hypocrisy and lies, where everything is governed by commercial interests and not by whether or not something is good or not (think about writer's who have to first of all submit a manuscript in a certain format so that the commercially-minded publisher agrees to even read it, is this like to promote manuscripts from good authors who concentrate on thinking and writing and not on manuscript format, or s**t authors who have no problem with concentrating on exactly the wrong things? i, of course, speak only for myself when i say that submitting a manuscript in a set format is just about an insurmountable obstacle for me ever to submit a manuscript because, well, i do have better things to do...anyway, that's not enough, because whether or not the manuscript will be considered for publication has nothing to do with it's own merits but more with how well it suits with the political agenda of the publisher in general...already these two things just about dictate that no worthwhile books will be published) and their criminality is a direct expression against it. They are like a cancer that develops in a body, not because it is the disease, but because the body is in a sickly condition and develops the disease by itself.

[King of Byblos]

Breaches their basic human rights?? Oh for the love of Mike, what utter crap. Forcible incarceration breaches their human rights as well.
You'll forgive me if I have little sympathy, the average convict has a far easier time of it , and better living conditions than the average person serving in Her Majesty's Armed Forces, or has the misfortune to be elderly and in an NHS hospital or nursing home.
These people forfeited their right to participate in society by committing a crime serious enough they were judged too dangerous to remain at large. And I rather doubt, quite frankly, that their contribution will be anything worthwhile.

yowsers no no no no no no no no and i say again no!
can i suggest you read


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 301101.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 170068.stm

(sorry you have caught me on home turf)
the shame about prison is that the overcrowding means that the rehabilitation work done cannot be as effective as when the prisons are at at their optimal capacity...the same as a hospital working best when every bed does not have a person in.

but yes. not all jails are s**t-holes
the conitions of jail range from 'inhuman' to 'relative luxury' but the cushy-open-jail-cum-5*hotel of the Daily Mail's imagination is not real
To be in a soft-cell ['scuse the pun] you have to earn this by being co-operative, but it is still incarceration.
Much of the luxury is 'imported' and tolerated by prison staff/the system.
Inmates with big tele's and playstations (still not allowed in most places) have them as person possessions. The Govenor has to allow them in, they are security checked and become 'currency' or leverage for favours from other inmates... even the nicest YOI's aren't handing them out at christmas courtesy of the tax payer

[MadameButterfly]

Yes they should vote. And I would just like to take the time to mention that once upon a time there was a prisioner that actually became the president of the country and he was one of the best presidents of these times. FACT.

[King of Byblos]

and while i am at it

The missed opportunities due to prson conditions involve 'citizenship' and an inmate who engages with the system can come out with a better, reasoned idea of who to vote and why that you or i (probably) have.

the current hope is that the ongoing overcrowding, provoked by the governments meddling in the justice system, forces a rethink on REHABILITATION not just incarceration before the 'ex-offender now remade cizitzen' becomes a 'perma-crim'

[mh]

The right to vote may well be part of our western culture, but if we want to uphold any of (what's left of) our freedom we need to uphold all of it.

Like I said before, where will it stop? Take the right to vote away from prisoners, and who will be next to lose it? And which right will prisoners be next to lose, for that matter?

Because otherwise we may as well admit that we're not living in democracies, and be done with it.

This isn't about prison conditions, and it's not about differences between cultures. It's about one culture (or at least a part of one culture) seriously considering taking away some it's citizen's right to determine their government.

[MadameButterfly]

This isn't about prison conditions, and it's not about differences between cultures. It's about one culture (or at least a part of one culture) seriously considering taking away some it's citizen's right to determine their government.

Yes indeed and everyone should be allowed to vote.
One man - one vote.

[DeWinter]

yowsers no no no no no no no no and i say again no!
can i suggest you read


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 301101.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 170068.stm

(sorry you have caught me on home turf)
the shame about prison is that the overcrowding means that the rehabilitation work done cannot be as effective as when the prisons are at at their optimal capacity...the same as a hospital working best when every bed does not have a person in.

but yes. not all jails are s**t-holes
the conitions of jail range from 'inhuman' to 'relative luxury' but the cushy-open-jail-cum-5*hotel of the Daily Mail's imagination is not real
To be in a soft-cell ['scuse the pun] you have to earn this by being co-operative, but it is still incarceration.
Much of the luxury is 'imported' and tolerated by prison staff/the system.
Inmates with big tele's and playstations (still not allowed in most places) have them as person possessions. The Govenor has to allow them in, they are security checked and become 'currency' or leverage for favours from other inmates... even the nicest YOI's aren't handing them out at christmas courtesy of the tax payer

Well, whatever Erwin James did to get incarcerated for 25 years, it's unlikely to make me trust his word or opinion on much. I doubt it was refusing to pay Council Tax or the telly license.
As for prison conditions, to use an Americanism, they can cry me a river. Sort out the living conditions and appalling treatment of the Army(who actually risk their lives for their country), the elderly, and the poor. Then you can come to me and ask me to give a damn about criminals.
Speaking of this, I am enjoying reading from abroad the current goings on in the criminal justice system. Has Comrade Reid been hitting the bottle again, do you think?
MadameButterfly:
I take it you mean Mandela? I would say he was a good man, but a bloody awful President. Also not above propping up the occasional despotic regime when in South Africa's interests, either.

[markfiend]

The Monarch and Peers of the Realm can't vote in the UK. What about them?

[MadameButterfly]

MadameButterfly:
I take it you mean Mandela? I would say he was a good man, but a bloody awful President. Also not above propping up the occasional despotic regime when in South Africa's interests, either.

Yes I do mean Mandela and your opinion about him being a bloody awful President means nothing to me unless you have ever put foot on S.A. soil.

[DeWinter]

The right to vote may well be part of our western culture, but if we want to uphold any of (what's left of) our freedom we need to uphold all of it.

Like I said before, where will it stop? Take the right to vote away from prisoners, and who will be next to lose it? And which right will prisoners be next to lose, for that matter?

Because otherwise we may as well admit that we're not living in democracies, and be done with it.

This isn't about prison conditions, and it's not about differences between cultures. It's about one culture (or at least a part of one culture) seriously considering taking away some it's citizen's right to determine their government.

Depends on how you define democracy. The "demos" have next to no power to influence a Governments actions once it's elected. Seems here in Finland, for example, that the "people" may as well not exist, and all decisions are taken via a consensus amongst the political parties.
The UK lives in more of an elective dictatorship with constitutional safeguards against excesses.
And if, in this instance, you believe in the rule of the people, would you accept that the majority of the public do not agree with prisoners having the right to vote, therefore in a democracy, they would in fact be denied it?

[Ozpat]

Yes they should vote. And I would just like to take the time to mention that once upon a time there was a prisioner that actually became the president of the country and he was one of the best presidents of these times. FACT.

........ver well said Debs!

No doubt about it. Prisoners should be able to vote. I cannot think of even one good reason why they should not. Basic human right in a democracy.

[King of Byblos]

Well, whatever Erwin James did to get incarcerated for 25 years, it's unlikely to make me trust his word or opinion on much. I doubt it was refusing to pay Council Tax or the telly license.
As for prison conditions, to use an Americanism, they can cry me a river. Sort out the living conditions and appalling treatment of the Army(who actually risk their lives for their country), the elderly, and the poor. Then you can come to me and ask me to give a damn about criminals.
Speaking of this, I am enjoying reading from abroad the current goings on in the criminal justice system. Has Comrade Reid been hitting the bottle again, do you think?

how about an ecenomic argument:
teating offenders as human beings in the hope that it will reduce the rate of re-offending frees up funds to spend on Army living conditions, the NHS etc building more prisons don't!.


......................
on a larger scale this is all a bit of inter-departmental sabre rattling pre a change in government. all the goverment agencies are tying to get column inches to ensure they have a upward budget review when the new person moves into 10 downing street