Lined up to vote
David Cameron, a supposedly intelligent person, recently stated that he felt sick at the thought of prisoners voting in elections. This situation arises as a recent court case ruled that it broke prisoner’s rights not to be allowed to vote.
As a result most of the right-wing newspapers have got very excited. Many traditional Conservative voters are spending sleepless nights worrying about this issue.
Benefits to society if prisoners vote
One of the main reasons that many people are in prison is but they lack civic responsibility. Often their background and upbringing has alienated them from mainstream society. The majority of prisoners have poor education standards, poor reading standards and have probably moved within anti-establishment circles.
Surely giving all prisoners the vote, except those that have committed electoral fraud, would at least partially address this situation. It would give some prisoners an awareness of the wider outside world. It would also give prison education authorities the chance to teach civil responsibility, but without the preaching.
The loss of liberty is the punishment
The prisoner’s punishment is their loss of liberty. They should be given the opportunity to reflect on their lives with the hope that they would be able to see a better life for themselves.
These childish attempts to block
These childish attempts to block what seems a sensible idea, well it is in the rest of Europe, because the newspaper, Daily Mail, cynically gets its reader’s knickers in a twist. It’s proprietors having a clear anti-Europe and anti-European Court of Human Rights agenda.
Britain out on a limb
Yet again another attack on the European Court of Human Rights. We seem to be the only country out of the 42 signatories, including Russia, who seem to have a serious problem with the court.
This problem with prisoner’s right to vote demonstrates the problem the British political class and Civil Service have with Europe. They know what is happening in Europe, but they do no forward planning and wait until the last moment to react.
Then everything has to be done in a rush and it is easier to blame Europe rather than admit their own incompetence. Europe is the scapegoat for much of the inadeqacies of the ‘Westminster Village’.
In the case of prisoner voting rights there had to be top politicians and top civil servants who understood the problem. They could have prepared a gradual implementation of the voting rights many, many years ago.
As it is the debate will be highly charged, not all through properly and we will end up with yet another badly thought through compromise. This in turn will cause more court cases, patch ups, political arguments and gradual modifications to the voting rights, with a system that is is inferior to that of most of Europe, (as usual).
Conclusion
I believe that all prisoners with the exception of those convicted of electoral fraud to be allowed to vote. This is a good way to engage with prisoners in getting them to think about the wider society.
In particular I think the longer term prisoners should be given the vote as this gives them some link with society.
I can accept that as additional punishment some people, such as child murderers or paedophiles, could be to take away their vote. But, this should only be done in exceptional circumstances.
The reality is that I suspect that few prisoners will actually take the opportunity to cast their votes. But for some it could start them taking up an interest in politics and this could help them cope on the outside.
What do you think?
What are your views on this?