Should prisoners get the vote?
Setting aside the financial implications of not extending voting rights to prisoners, what of the moral case? When prisoners go to prison, they don't cease to be citizens: why then should they lose a basic right and responsibility of citizenship? We debated the issue today with criminologist Professor Phil Scraton from Queen's University, the Conservative MP Philip Davies and Dr Jonathan Burnside, Reader in Law at the University of Bristol, and author of God, Justice and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible which has just been published by Oxford University Press.
Listen again to Sunday Sequence here.
Read a BBC briefing on prisoners' voting rights.
Comment number 1.
At 17:30 6th Feb 2011, newlach wrote:It seems that if prisoners do not get the vote taxpayers will be required to pay them millions of pounds in compensation. Could not a law be passed that would allow the government to reclaim any monies paid to prisoners from whatever source? Giving hardened villains the vote will do nothing to reform them.
A guest this morning made an interesting point about America, where in some states 1 in 4 black men is disenfranchised. I think preventing released prisoners from voting is an extreme idea.
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Comment number 2.
At 20:25 6th Feb 2011, Dagsannr wrote:Yes.
But have their vote counted against the constituency at which they were last registered, that way you're not skewing the demographics in areas with prisons.
A society is judged by the way it treats its prisoners.
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Comment number 3.
At 17:59 7th Feb 2011, sporpo wrote:One important point that nobody seems to have picked up on is this:
It is politicians who decide what the law is.
Therefore some people end up in prison as a result of laws which other people may consider unjust.
An example - the Home Secretary can decide that a substance that some people wish to ingest is now banned and that the sale or possession of it is illegal.
Shouldn't people who end up in prison as a result of these decisions have to right to vote for someone with a different point of view?
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Comment number 4.
At 18:57 7th Feb 2011, logica_sine_vanitate wrote:sporpo -
Good point.
Also, it should be remembered that, of course, not all crimes lead to a custodial sentence. So where do we draw the line concerning the criminality of the offender?
I personally think that a billionaire tax dodger, or a businessman whose company fails and who then makes workers redundant (who are not at fault for the failure of the company) while he walks off with an obscene golden handshake, should be denied the vote, since, in my view, they are clearly more criminal than a woman who is incarcerated for failing to pay her council tax.
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Comment number 5.
At 20:51 7th Feb 2011, Dave wrote:I think the only reason someone should be disenfranchised is if they have been found guilty of illegally obstructing democracy (electoral fraud, political bribery, cash for questions/honours, being Tony Blair - that sort of thing) and I absolutely agree with sporpo's point.
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