Prisoners' Rights to Vote in the United States.

I recently discovered two things about prisoners in the United States: the first is that, in most states, prisoners are not allowed to vote; the other thing is that in two states, Vermont and Maine, they are.

Now, this situation gave me pause to reflect. Firstly, I noted that the fact that the law is different from one place to another, inside the USA, is different to many countries, in which the law is uniform. Secondly, I found myself agreeing with one side and disagreeing with the other.

What effect does it have if a society has a large number of prisoners (as the USA does) and they ARE allowed to vote? What sort of people are more likely to get elected? I contend that representatives who are SOFT on crime are more likely to be elected. Over time, society's stand against crime would be eroded in any society that allowed prisoners to vote. If you want to have a low crime society that is low crime partly because it is hard on criminals, you cannot and should not allow prisoners to vote. To do so, is to gradually allow the nation to drift away from a position hard on crime. In short, to allow criminals to vote is to ensure that there is more crime on the streets of your nation. Voting criminals would lead, eventually, to shorter sentences, reductions in punishments, the abolition of the death penalty and so many other of society's stands against crime, would vanish.

It doesn't make sense to give criminals a say, however indirect, in how they are punished for their crimes. Hence, I think it is a foolish society that allows criminals a vote - it is a society that is guaranteeing the expansion of "criminals' rights" and an upsurge, ultimately, in crime, that no-one could ever want, apart from the criminals, themselves.

Maine and Vermont disagree with me. In those two states, US prisoners enjoy normal voting rights in the upcoming Presidential election. It stands to reason that they are, as a unit, more likely to vote for the President whom they perceive is softer on crime, or more likely to behave in some way to make their lives better. I cannot think that this is a good influence on the election in the US.

Now, does it really matter? Well, it does, for the numbers of people involved are huge. One in forty Americans is presently barred from voting owing to a felony conviction - that's right 2.5% of the US public cannot vote, because of a criminal past. That also means 2.5% of Maine and Vermont voters who CAN vote despite a criminal past, will influence the electoral results there.

Ten of the states in the US have a permanent ban on the voting of ex-offenders, who committed a felony, a further fifteen states have a ban that extends beyond the end of the prison sentence, for a certain time (for instance, five years in Delaware). Only two states allow voting by prisoners.

There are many who protest that the civil rights of prisoners are being denied by this. Yet, I ask you were not the civil rights of their victims being denied when they mugged, murdered, raped them? Surely, such a basic denial of rights to other humans should be punished by a denial of the right to vote (since it influences how they will be punished)?

The term for this denial of the rights of prisoners to vote is called Felony Disenfranchisement. Contrary to those who argue against it, I think it is a wise move to prevent undue influence of criminals, as a voting block, on matters that might affect how they are treated by the system. So, I find myself in the unusual position of supporting a denial of rights - but I think that is the only reasonable thing to do, given the peculiar nature of the situation. Would you give a criminal under trial a vote on his own jury? No-one would...but giving a prisoner the vote is equivalent to doing so - because it gives them an indirect say in the nature of punishment that will be enacted in law, for the crimes they might consider committing in future, should they be released. Society is not made safer, thereby, by giving criminals the right to vote - it is giving them an indirect power over their own fate that cannot, by any sensible society, be given to them.

So, well done to those US states that disenfranchise their felons...and shame on Vermont and Maine for not thinking on a longer term basis about the influence of criminals on their legal system.

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