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Thread: Votes for prisoners

  1. #21
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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    MPs should not respond to something simply because there may be votes in it - they should do the right thing regardless
    MP's are doing the wrong thing, denying selected people the right to express their opinions, because there are votes in it. The only qualification needed to deserve "Human rights" should be being human.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    I suppose that depends on whether you consider voting a human right.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    I suppose that depends on whether you consider voting a human right.
    The right to vote is a human right - it's codified in Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You can disagree with it, but it's defined as such in the most widespread and definitive declaration we've got.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Double Trouble View Post
    Interestingly there was a prison officer who phoned in to Jeremy Vine yesterday who commented that the prisoners who have sentences for less than a year are the “Career Criminals”, who see their loss of liberty as an occupational hazard. It was his opinion that these types were the ones he thought deserved the vote the least as he knew he’d see most of them back inside the following year and that most of them had at least 20 convictions to their name already.
    Logically, that's rubbish. Criminals with 20 prior convictions won't be getting 1 year sentences unless they are committing extremely trivial crimes.

    Maximum sentence for theft - 7 years. For burglary - 14 years. Possession of a controlled substance with intent to supply - life imprisonment. People with 20 previous convictions will have them all taken into account when sentence is imposed, and after that many priors minimum sentences are highly unlikely.

    Also, it isn't a question of 'deserving' the vote, just as it's not a question of 'deserving' privacy. You are simply entitled to these things.

    Accepted that convicts are deprived of certain things as part of their punishment. It's just that at this time, they are only deprived of the vote in the UK as a convention, a hangover from the Victorian era. One other option would be for deprivation of the vote to be a possible element of a sentence. If that was the case the ECHR would have no problem. It's just unfair as an unthinking, undebated, additional element without justification.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    I'd like to see votes for all prisoners in the hope that it encourages politicians to take more interest in the way prisons are run.

    If anyone finds my viewpoint hard to understand then I recommend reading Jeffrey Archers Prison Diaries 1,2 and 3.
    Read Jeffrey Archer? I'd sooner dip my balls in acid.

  6. #26
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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    One other option would be for deprivation of the vote to be a possible element of a sentence. If that was the case the ECHR would have no problem. It's just unfair as an unthinking, undebated, additional element without justification.
    Yes, that was my idea a bit earlier - just make it an explicit part of every punishment.
    I'm surprised that's not been tried - maybe the advice the government got was that such a tactic wouldn't work?

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    I'm somewhat undecided on this, but I think I lean towards giving prisoners the vote.

    You're punishing a person for their crime by incarcerating them, but unless their crime was against society as a whole, I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to vote for how it continues to run. Even in prison a person can be affected by the choices their government makes. As many have said, it is especially pertinent if the person will get out of prison during the current term of whatever candidacy they voted for.

    Actually, it strikes me that there are plenty of would-be criminals who support a party knowing full well that that party won't criminalise them whereas another would (e.g. the whole fox hunting malarkey). We legitimise their votes because they are, for all intents and purposes, innocent people, who can nonetheless do things that some might consider morally reprehensible. Yet we are proposing taking the vote away from people who, by all rights, are already serving a punishment - they can do far less harm (in theory) while they are incarcerated.

    Anyway, this is all fairly moot - we're really not talking that many votes at the end of the day - the cynic in me sees this as pure political point scoring and nothing else.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by David Bailey View Post
    The right to vote is a human right - it's codified in Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You can disagree with it, but it's defined as such in the most widespread and definitive declaration we've got.
    It doesnt say everyone has the right to vote exactly, the ability to vote when NOT in prison may still apply, as long as they can take part in government in some way - that is clearer. Anyway, those rights are ignored by every country in the world to some degree. Not worth the paper they're printed on really

    e.g. 1% of the US Population is in jail and subject to slave labour.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    It doesnt say everyone has the right to vote exactly
    Well, it kind of does, that's what the "Universal" bit mieans.

    Whilst certain of those rights can't be removed under appropriate circumstances - the obvious example is the right to liberty - that doesn't mean that other rights are similarly removed.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    Anyway, those rights are ignored by every country in the world to some degree. Not worth the paper they're printed on really

    e.g. 1% of the US Population is in jail and subject to slave labour.
    Blimey, DS, has someone nicked your login details? You seem to be turning into DT before my eyes...

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by David Bailey View Post
    Blimey, DS, has someone nicked your login details? You seem to be turning into DT before my eyes...
    really ? hang on. I'm away to look at my boobs in the mirror

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Well, apparently the House of Commons has voted overwhelmingly to retain the ban on prisoner voting:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12409426

    That isn't a binding decision but I guess it's a very strong indicator of which way this will go.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    MPs should not respond to something simply because there may be votes in it - they should do the right thing regardless
    That's not what it's about. The point of giving prisoners the vote is that some MPs will have prisoners as their constituents. This will force MPs to interact with prisoners instead of just regarding them as sub-human scum. Hopefully that will result in MPs who have a more enlightened view of the prisons system. Here in the UK we have one of the highest rates of incarceration in Western Europe. Just building more and more prisons to accomodate the ever increasing prison population is a very regressive thing to do. Many prisoners are repeat offenders so we need to try and stop the revolving door situation for these people. Therefore, in my mind anything that forces MPs to stop and think about how we run prisons and provide effective rehabilitation has to be a good thing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Read Jeffrey Archer? I'd sooner dip my balls in acid.
    Really? I have some Perchloric acid, would you like to try?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    1% of the US Population is in jail
    Evidently their system is even worse than ours.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    Here in the UK we have one of the highest rates of incarceration in Western Europe. Just building more and more prisons to accomodate the ever increasing prison population is a very regressive thing to do. Many prisoners are repeat offenders so we need to try and stop the revolving door situation for these people. Therefore, in my mind anything that forces MPs to stop and think about how we run prisons and provide effective rehabilitation has to be a good thing.
    hmm. Put like that, I can only agree.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quite true, we're no where near as bad as the US, but it's also interesting to see how the England/Wales prison population has increased in recent years (useful figures here). No doubt the increase makes some members of the public feel good that people are being caught and locked up and the government is being 'tough on crime', but what's the use if they just reoffend. It's my opinion that if we choose to lock people up we also have a duty to make some kind of assessment for risk of re-offending and try to rehabilitate offenders wherever possible.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by David Bailey View Post
    Yes, that was my idea a bit earlier - just make it an explicit part of every punishment.
    I'm surprised that's not been tried - maybe the advice the government got was that such a tactic wouldn't work?
    Hmm... They are in jail because 20 years inside was not a sufficient deterrent, and some think ....

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by DJ Mike View Post
    ...Anyway, this is all fairly moot - we're really not talking that many votes at the end of the day - the cynic in me sees this as pure political point scoring and nothing else.
    A councillor looking after their interests might be a good thing.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    Really? I have some Perchloric acid, would you like to try?
    Absolutely not. Wild horses couldn't persuade me. The statement is an indication of how strong is my antipathy towards that mendacious bit of pond-life.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    Hmm... They are in jail because 20 years inside was not a sufficient deterrent, and some think ....
    This has nothing to do with deterrence, it's simply a suggestion to get the government out of a hole.

    At the moment, it looks like the government is hell-bent on either spending vast amounts of (my) money annually on prisoner compensation claims, or is looking to secede from the Council of Europe and join that other beacon of enlightened liberalism, Belarus.

    Call me crazy, but I can't help but think that simply allowing some prisoners to vote would have been the sensible option.

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    Re: Votes for prisoners

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing One sort of nasty criminal that should not have had the vote?

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