Should prisoner's have the right to vote?

[bodie]

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Britain is acting unlawfully by taking away the right to vote of people in prison.

Britain has not allowed it's prisoner's this right for 140 years.... now there will be certain prisoner's who will be given this opportunity.

Is the European Court right?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/5126647/Prisoners-to-get-right-to-vote-after-140-years-following-European-ruling.html

[Frolic_Fun]

I don't agree with giving them the right to vote. If anything, prisoners should have less rights than they currently do now IMO.

[Enos]

Depends on the crime and the prisoner's state of mind. If it's a totally sane petty criminal that's stolen a few things I don't see the problem.

[Parts]

Prisoners should have the right to vote   Sorry when your in prison you lose certain things.

[Al Swearegen]

Agree with Parts.

[Semicolon]

Everyone of legal age should have the right to vote. It's a fundamental right in representative democracies.

[Parts]

So is freedom but that is taken away from prisoners also.  Being a prisoner means giving up certain rights as a citizen.

[Adam]

imo if you commit a crime bad enough to deserve to be locked away, then you forfeit your rights


Basic human rights, yeah

But the right to participate in a society whose rules you refuse to follow? If you can't contribute to society then you can't claim to have the same rights others have

and by contribute to society I don't mean with money or anything, but by simply being a decent law-abiding person

[Semicolon]

So is freedom but that is taken away from prisoners also.  Being a prisoner means giving up certain rights as a citizen.

No; it means restricting certain rights to protect society as a whole. Prisoners give up their right to freedom of movement because it would be dangerous to society to let them move about (and it would ruin the basis of prison as a punishment, which also harms society); they give up their right to own guns because it would be dangerous to allow prisoners to own guns; etc. There should be a reason for why any right is ever restricted. Why should prisoners give up the right to vote?

[Semicolon]

imo if you commit a crime bad enough to deserve to be locked away, then you forfeit your rights


Basic human rights, yeah

But the right to participate in a society whose rules you refuse to follow? If you can't contribute to society then you can't claim to have the same rights others have

and by contribute to society I don't mean with money or anything, but by simply being a decent law-abiding person

Would you say the same thing about a political prisoner, or someone who was wrongfully convicted?

[Adam]

imo if you commit a crime bad enough to deserve to be locked away, then you forfeit your rights


Basic human rights, yeah

But the right to participate in a society whose rules you refuse to follow? If you can't contribute to society then you can't claim to have the same rights others have

and by contribute to society I don't mean with money or anything, but by simply being a decent law-abiding person

Would you say the same thing about a political prisoner, or someone who was wrongfully convicted?

I said someone who deserves to be locked up, someone who deserves it in my opinion

What kind of crimes deserve that sort of punishment is a whole other issue

obviously if someone is wrongly convicted then they should be able to vote, but if they're wrongly convicted then they are no longer is prison so that's irrelevant. unless you mean at a time when it's unknown that they are innocent, then it is assumed then that they arae guilty, so again not relevant

[Semicolon]

imo if you commit a crime bad enough to deserve to be locked away, then you forfeit your rights


Basic human rights, yeah

But the right to participate in a society whose rules you refuse to follow? If you can't contribute to society then you can't claim to have the same rights others have

and by contribute to society I don't mean with money or anything, but by simply being a decent law-abiding person

Would you say the same thing about a political prisoner, or someone who was wrongfully convicted?

I said someone who deserves to be locked up, someone who deserves it in my opinion

What kind of crimes deserve that sort of punishment is a whole other issue

obviously if someone is wrongly convicted then they should be able to vote, but if they're wrongly convicted then they are no longer is prison so that's irrelevant. unless you mean at a time when it's unknown that they are innocent, then it is assumed then that they arae guilty, so again not relevant

Your system unnecessarily restricts the rights of prisoners. Why shouldn't they be able to vote?

[Frolic_Fun]

If you go to prison and you still have the same basic human rights and privileges of society, then it isn't a prison. The whole point of prison is to punish people who did nothing but disrupt others, which is done by restricting freedoms that we take for granted as citizens. If you give prisoners more freedoms, IMO then they might aswell be not in prison, but at a holiday resort that wastes tax money.

EDIT: Prison is so comfy to some people that they deliberately commit crimes in order to have better living conditions.

[midlifeaspie]

The entire concept of prison is a relatively new one in the history of humankind, and a fucked up one at that.  Especially in the US where we keep a higher percentage of our population in prison than Russia or China.  Questions like whether or not they should be able to vote should take a backseat to the important questions like why a society should pay trillions of dollars to punish people in this fashion.

[Semicolon]

If you go to prison and you still have the same basic human rights and privileges of society, then it isn't a prison. The whole point of prison is to punish people who did nothing but disrupt others, which is done by restricting freedoms that we take for granted as citizens. If you give prisoners more freedoms, IMO then they might aswell be not in prison, but at a holiday resort that wastes tax money.

EDIT: Prison is so comfy to some people that they deliberately commit crimes in order to have better living conditions.

The point of prison is to restrict prisoner access to society to minimize the damage that they can cause. Preventing prisoners from voting doesn't help that.