I don't know. I'm generally on board with preventing people in prison from being able to vote. I'm okay with restoring that right post-incarceration, though.
Beyond being a pointless punishment, I think giving the incarcerated the vote would help to lead them back to the path of being part of society, and you really shouldn't be having a large enough prison population for them to be swinging the polls in any manner (assuming you have them use absentee balloting).
Aren't prisoners counted for number of people in a voting district even though they are not able to vote. Thus creating some incredibly rotten boroughs?
In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.
Aren't prisoners counted for number of people in a voting district even though they are not able to vote. Thus creating some incredibly rotten boroughs?
Yep. And they would be able to sway local elections.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
If we're going to be re-releasing them back into society, it is in our best interest to give them a stake in that society and a feeling of agency toward it.
Making it impossible for felons to exert even the most basic kind of political influence (or hold down a job, etc) is exactly the problem when it comes to recidivism rates in this country.
Felons are still citizens. They are very easy to other, but it's a bad idea to do so.
I don't know. I'm generally on board with preventing people in prison from being able to vote. I'm okay with restoring that right post-incarceration, though.
Why?
Because while prison isn't supposed to be the kind of punishment where we toss undesirables and throw away the key, it's still supposed to be some kind of punishment. You want to make an argument that certain types of crime shouldn't also include a loss of voting privileges, then sure, we can have that kind of discussion. There are all kinds of terrible things in the prison system that can do with a lot of reform, but giving the incarcerated voting rights is pretty damned low on that list.
I don't believe prison should be a form of punishment, full stop.
I know this is a point of view that doesn't gel with a lot of people, but there it is.
Prisons should exist to segregate the dangerous away from there rest of society and to rehabilitate criminals into law-abiding, productive members of society with an eye on reduction of recidivism wherever humanly possible.
Punishment doesn't ever at any point enter into the equation.
The fact that your basic freedoms to live as a free person are restricted and you are forced to live in a prison and participate in a prison program and existence is the consequences of your crime. You have been deemed someone who has to be segregated away from society at large and given restricted access to materials and what you want from life, and are obligated to participate in schedules and programs as a result.
None of this needs to take the tone of being punitive and nor does it have to include things like taking basic rights like voting away from people.
They're still human beings. We're keeping them away from the rest of us for our good because by their actions, they've shown that is what is necessary for a period of time until we as a public are satisfied they no longer present a danger to the public. That's where the decision to imprison them comes from. Not punishing them. Keeping us safe.
So unless you can make the argument that being able to vote somehow makes them a public threat, I don't see why it's right to take their right to vote away. This is not something in the interest of the safety of the people. It's punitive for the sake of being punitive. It's making them lesser people for no other reason than the belief that criminals are lesser people.
I don't know. I'm generally on board with preventing people in prison from being able to vote. I'm okay with restoring that right post-incarceration, though.
Why?
Because while prison isn't supposed to be the kind of punishment where we toss undesirables and throw away the key, it's still supposed to be some kind of punishment. You want to make an argument that certain types of crime shouldn't also include a loss of voting privileges, then sure, we can have that kind of discussion. There are all kinds of terrible things in the prison system that can do with a lot of reform, but giving the incarcerated voting rights is pretty damned low on that list.
No it's not. And nothing you said explains why we should strip prisoners of such a fundamental right as the franchise.
Why should any crime deny you the right to vote? Why should anything? You have demonstrated no public ill from them voting and no public good from denying them the vote.
Like, your only argument here is "because I want to hurt these people" and that's not a good answer to anything. Certainly not to government policy involving one of the most fundamental of rights.
Even at the most high-minded, prison is still a punishment. Even without having to worry about getting shanked or raped and are in nice, uncrowded accomodations, you're still being ripped away from your home and context, losing out on years of income, etc.
Even at the most high-minded, prison is still a punishment. Even without having to worry about getting shanked or raped and are in nice, uncrowded accomodations, you're still being ripped away from your home and context, losing out on years of income, etc.
Forced commitment of the mentally ill who pose a risk to themselves and others does those things as well.
Even at the most high-minded, prison is still a punishment. Even without having to worry about getting shanked or raped and are in nice, uncrowded accomodations, you're still being ripped away from your home and context, losing out on years of income, etc.
This isn't quite true. Some countries allow (if the criminal in question is not deemed high risk) for friend & family interaction, for visits home and offer either robust welfare programs or robust means to get the person back into the labor market (or both).
When prison becomes far more about treatment, with any restrictions on the person's mobility being merely consequential (they are proven to be dangerous to other people, therefore they have to be kept away from other people), its far more beneficial to the prisoner than punitive, providing a positive social structure they often lacked, vocational training, mental health care and recreation: things that are all aimed at reforming behavior by having the person buy into social norms.
Or, y'know. You can just choose to put Them away to do Hard Time, because man it's so emotionally satisfying to watch people we don't like have bad things happen to them.
Even at the most high-minded, prison is still a punishment. Even without having to worry about getting shanked or raped and are in nice, uncrowded accomodations, you're still being ripped away from your home and context, losing out on years of income, etc.
Forced commitment of the mentally ill who pose a risk to themselves and others does those things as well.
Hell, this is how I felt about high school.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
If we're going to be re-releasing them back into society, it is in our best interest to give them a stake in that society and a feeling of agency toward it.
Making it impossible for felons to exert even the most basic kind of political influence (or hold down a job, etc) is exactly the problem when it comes to recidivism rates in this country.
Felons are still citizens. They are very easy to other, but it's a bad idea to do so.
This is the most persuasive argument I've seen for giving them the right to vote while incarcerated.
I think if we can do it in such a way that it's accurate and doesn't lead to any negative side effects or abuses, that's cool. I think if it's going to result in a bunch of corruption and oppression, then it's a bit silly to categorize it as an odious violation of the rights of the people we've stuck in tiny boxes for several years.
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EDIT: Just because this is my favorite segment of the article, even though I don't think this should be the goal of the system:
Now imagine yourself in a prison that commands a view from a tourist brochure. Your cell phone lies on a shelf, next to a TV and CD player, inside a prison that lets you go to paid work or study. There is no perimeter wall. Prison staff will help you with free-world social services to cover a missed month’s rent on your family’s apartment. Another will help you look for work, or for the next stage of education. Imagine yourself a prisoner who knows he is in prison for what he did, not because of his color or class, or because, lacking the resources for a proper defense, he plea-bargained under threat of near-geological years of incarceration. But also imagine living on this lovely island knowing, every minute of every day, that this is not your home, these people are not your family, your friends, your children, and you are always one misstep from a cell in a closed prison. You have strict curfews. In town you carry an electronic anklet. Yet nothing here feels unfair or unreasonable. You have, after all, committed a crime serious enough to make a range of other remedies untenable. Nothing you can see or touch or smell or taste, and no interaction with staff gives you anything to blame or resent about the system that brought you here.
This is the polished glass nightmare. Every emotional discomfort, every moment of remorse that you might try to cover with resentment of the system, everything you try to grip onto to crawl away from personal responsibility slides back into the pit of the self. Judges and prosecutors are unelected professionals who are under political pressure only to minimize prison populations. The message everywhere you look and walk is the same. You did this to yourself. You sit in a university classroom, but you harbor a secret. You are not like the others. On the way to work, you walk along a lovely sea wall, among kids and adults on holiday, but you know you are not free. You look like them; they never raise an eyebrow at you. But you know. You are under quarantine, and the disease is the past you made for yourself. Everything is being done to help and prepare you to clear this secret and live again like others. But the weight, finally, rests with you. This truly existential weight is implicit in the principle of normality, which is practiced throughout Scandinavian prisons: “The punishment is the restriction of liberty; no other rights have been removed,” reads a fact sheet on criminal services in Norway. “During the serving of a sentence, life inside will resemble life outside as much as possible. You need a reason to deny a sentenced offender his rights, not to grant them. Progression through a sentence should be aimed as much as possible at returning to the community. The more closed a system is, the harder it will be to return to freedom.”
The above makes it sound like discipline from loving parents, in the sense that they're not doing this to you because they hate you and they'd really rather not do it at all, but your actions have forced their hand.
The above makes it sound like discipline from loving parents, in the sense that they're not doing this to you because they hate you and they'd really rather not do it at all, but your actions have forced their hand.
And that is exactly what it should be.
edit: I think @Mr Khan agrees with me; I'm just posting for emphasis.
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Yep. And they would be able to sway local elections.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Making it impossible for felons to exert even the most basic kind of political influence (or hold down a job, etc) is exactly the problem when it comes to recidivism rates in this country.
Felons are still citizens. They are very easy to other, but it's a bad idea to do so.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Because while prison isn't supposed to be the kind of punishment where we toss undesirables and throw away the key, it's still supposed to be some kind of punishment. You want to make an argument that certain types of crime shouldn't also include a loss of voting privileges, then sure, we can have that kind of discussion. There are all kinds of terrible things in the prison system that can do with a lot of reform, but giving the incarcerated voting rights is pretty damned low on that list.
I know this is a point of view that doesn't gel with a lot of people, but there it is.
Prisons should exist to segregate the dangerous away from there rest of society and to rehabilitate criminals into law-abiding, productive members of society with an eye on reduction of recidivism wherever humanly possible.
Punishment doesn't ever at any point enter into the equation.
The fact that your basic freedoms to live as a free person are restricted and you are forced to live in a prison and participate in a prison program and existence is the consequences of your crime. You have been deemed someone who has to be segregated away from society at large and given restricted access to materials and what you want from life, and are obligated to participate in schedules and programs as a result.
None of this needs to take the tone of being punitive and nor does it have to include things like taking basic rights like voting away from people.
They're still human beings. We're keeping them away from the rest of us for our good because by their actions, they've shown that is what is necessary for a period of time until we as a public are satisfied they no longer present a danger to the public. That's where the decision to imprison them comes from. Not punishing them. Keeping us safe.
So unless you can make the argument that being able to vote somehow makes them a public threat, I don't see why it's right to take their right to vote away. This is not something in the interest of the safety of the people. It's punitive for the sake of being punitive. It's making them lesser people for no other reason than the belief that criminals are lesser people.
I don't support that.
No it's not. And nothing you said explains why we should strip prisoners of such a fundamental right as the franchise.
Why should any crime deny you the right to vote? Why should anything? You have demonstrated no public ill from them voting and no public good from denying them the vote.
Like, your only argument here is "because I want to hurt these people" and that's not a good answer to anything. Certainly not to government policy involving one of the most fundamental of rights.
Forced commitment of the mentally ill who pose a risk to themselves and others does those things as well.
This isn't quite true. Some countries allow (if the criminal in question is not deemed high risk) for friend & family interaction, for visits home and offer either robust welfare programs or robust means to get the person back into the labor market (or both).
When prison becomes far more about treatment, with any restrictions on the person's mobility being merely consequential (they are proven to be dangerous to other people, therefore they have to be kept away from other people), its far more beneficial to the prisoner than punitive, providing a positive social structure they often lacked, vocational training, mental health care and recreation: things that are all aimed at reforming behavior by having the person buy into social norms.
Or, y'know. You can just choose to put Them away to do Hard Time, because man it's so emotionally satisfying to watch people we don't like have bad things happen to them.
Hell, this is how I felt about high school.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
This is the most persuasive argument I've seen for giving them the right to vote while incarcerated.
I think if we can do it in such a way that it's accurate and doesn't lead to any negative side effects or abuses, that's cool. I think if it's going to result in a bunch of corruption and oppression, then it's a bit silly to categorize it as an odious violation of the rights of the people we've stuck in tiny boxes for several years.
what about tracking bracelets, spending weekends a correctional facility (not a prison), etc
I think there are much better ways of dealing with non violent crime than prison
Even for offenders that have committed violent crimes, in fact, year after year in a closed system well after the act is often not the right answer.
EDIT: Just because this is my favorite segment of the article, even though I don't think this should be the goal of the system:
And that is exactly what it should be.
edit: I think @Mr Khan agrees with me; I'm just posting for emphasis.