shortdogg (edison) Should prisoners vote?

Many countries go to a great expense to encourage their populations to vote. However, many of these same countries also expend quite a bit to keep a certain percentage from not voting. In 48 states and 7 European countries including Britain, prisoners are not allowed to vote. Many more countries have partial voting bans. In 10 American states some criminals lose their right to vote for life, even after their rehabilitation. Most prisoners feel that the normal social rules do not apply to them, and taking away their right to vote only further compounds those feelings. As they have already lost their right to privacy and right to family life.            

Believers of democracy should hold the right to vote closely and to consider the loss of this right as a most serious sanction. Prisoners awaiting trial who do have the right to vote(in most countries) have several ways they can participate. Such as, by proxy or mail in absentee ballot. Some say that by taking away a prisoners right to vote only enforces the idea that if they do not want to follow the rules of a society, than they cannot participate in creating them. Although this type of punitive action doesn’t seem to be an effective deterent against any offense.

One of the goals of imprisonment is to give criminals a shove in the right direction through GED programs, job training, religion or whatever works. Allowing prisoners to vote won’t miraculously reconnect them to society but should probably do more good than bad, considering the number of prisoners that would vote would not be signifigant enough to swing a vote either way. The punishment should fit the crime and not all prisoners should have their rights taken for life. How as a society can we expect prisoners to assimilate back into society when we continue to exclude their right to effect that society?

This entry was posted on 8. November 2009 at 17:53 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.