On the enfranchising of prisoners

[julesjones]

There's been much hoop-la in the British press this week about the European Court of Human Rights ruling on which requires the UK to give the vote to prisoners. My rasfc mate Gray has very different political views from me, but this is one area where we agree. As he says in his post on the subject:

The simple problem is this. If people can be made political non-persons for breaking a rule, that provides a very strong incentive for politicians to pass frivolous laws targeting groups unlikely to vote for them, or to enforce general laws capriciously against the same targets.

The full post is worth reading. It may start off sounding rather frivolous, but the last half of the post is all too sobering.

Comments

[communicator.livejournal.com]

What he describes definitely happens in America

[julesjones]

I know, which is why I agree with him.

And it's not just votes. One of the ways in which California does not live up to its liberal reputation is the way in which the prison population creeps ever upward as a result of felony creep. The prison warders' union is extremely powerful, and pours a great deal of money into job creation schemes for its members -- i.e. campaigns to pass laws to increase sentence length, including making various misdemeanors into felonies. The abuse of the "three strikes and you're out" law is a prime example -- it was originally only intended to cover serious offences, but has been extended to cover fairly minor misdemeanors, so that people end up serving life sentences for a fairly trivial criminal record. I'm not particularly soft on crime, but as a tax-payer I object to this misuse of my tax dollars.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. It's sometimes easier to see this type of thing happening in another country than your own. But I do think the US is an extreme case when it comes to prison.

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

It's the European Court of Human Rights that's made the ruling. This is not an EU body, but was set up separately and arguably much earlier, in no small part on Britains initiative.

The European Court of Justice is a separate body, which is a part of the EU. In matters of human rights, they tend to follow the lead of ECHR.

In other words, it's not EU mandating UK law, as the tabloids and right-wing knee-jerkers would have it.

[julesjones]

Amended, ta.

[caper-est.livejournal.com]

And now corrected on my main blog too. That was exceedingly careless of me. Thanks to both of you!

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

I've always assumed that the point of prison was to deter those on the outside, and to rehabilitate those on the inside. As such, wouldn't the latter be served partly by encouraging social responsibility and educating the newly enfranchised population on why voting is good, and how they should decide who to vote for?

[julesjones]

The guy who was governor of Strangeways during the riot is of the opinion that prisoners should be allowed to vote, for precisely that reason.

(Don't read the comments thread unless you enjoy having your blood pressure raised.)

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link, and yes comments on those kind of pieces are rarely unbiased.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I was pleased to read Gray's post and also now yours because I was beginning to feel a bit odd for thinking that the European Court of Human Rights ruling was perfectly reasonable. According to all the media reports, I ought to be recoiling in horror at the very idea!

I'm with stevie_carroll regarding using voting as a way of engaging prisoners with the outside world and encouraging them to be more socially responsible.

[julesjones]

I'd been feeling frustrated because I keep getting the knee-jerk Daily Wail reader reaction from people around me in meatspace, but I was still too out of it from travelling to write a coherent rebuttal by way of venting. So I was *very* pleased to see Gray cover exactly the points I would have.