Should prisoners be allowed to vote? - General

Prisoners are people who went against the law and got their freedom taken away for that. Giving them the right of voting would be quite a big paradox.

Here's a good argument for why prisoners should not be allowed to vote: If prison is for rehabilitation for something that's seriously wrong with someone (murder, rape, etc.) wouldn't you want to rehabilitate them before returning they're right to vote?

[QUOTE=Jawalt;32482880]Here's a good argument for why prisoners should not be allowed to vote: If prison is for rehabilitation for something that's seriously wrong with someone (murder, rape, etc.) wouldn't you want to rehabilitate them before returning they're right to vote?[/QUOTE] Well most people in prison aren't that messed up. In fact I think having someone charged with something we currently consider wrong a voice could be a good thing. Not saying I think murder is good of course.

[QUOTE=Jawalt;32482880]Here's a good argument for why prisoners should not be allowed to vote: If prison is for rehabilitation for something that's seriously wrong with someone (murder, rape, etc.) wouldn't you want to rehabilitate them before returning they're right to vote?[/QUOTE] That's an awful argument as I've already addressed why on the previous page. The same argument saying the exact opposite for the same reason is equally as bad. Logically, why should someone lose their right to vote when they go to prison. What does murder and rape have to do with voting or citizenship?

[QUOTE=Pepin;32483088]That's an awful argument as I've already addressed why on the previous page. The same argument saying the exact opposite for the same reason is equally as bad. Logically, why should someone lose their right to vote when they go to prison. What does murder and rape have to do with voting or citizenship?[/QUOTE] The act of putting someone in a jail cell is already taking away all of his citizenship and freedom. It's part of the deal - you don't abide by the law of the society you live in, you get your rights taken away. It would be rather strange to allow someone to participate in the society he went against in the first place.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;32483221]The act of putting someone in a jail cell is already taking away all of his citizenship and freedom. It's part of the deal - you don't abide by the law of the society you live in, you get your rights taken away. It would be rather strange to allow someone to participate in the society he went against in the first place.[/QUOTE] There are three purposes of prison 1. To protect the rights of others, as those in prison are likely to harm those on the outside. Murderers are kept in prison because they are likely to murder. 2. As a form of punishment, as a price can't be put on everything. It may be easy to award the damages in a robbery case, but not so much in a murder case. The punishment also serves as a deterrent in that prison life would not be preferred to the life on the outside for many. 3. Reform, so that the criminal might get a better chance at life. Here is a citation. [quote]There are a number of accepted reasons for the use of imprisonment. One approach aims to deter those who would otherwise commit crimes (general deterrence) and to make it less likely that those who serve a prison sentence will commit crimes after their release (individual deterrence). A second approach focuses on issuing punishment to, or obtaining retribution from, those who have committed serious crimes. A third approach encourages the personal reform of those who are sent to prison. Finally, in some cases it is necessary to protect the public from those who commit crimes—particularly from those who do so persistently. In individual cases, all or some of these justifications may apply. The increasing importance of the notion of reform has led some prison systems to be called correctional institutions. [url]http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/477205/prison/272178/The-purpose-of-imprisonment[/url][/quote] Prisoners have rights, certainly less than the non prisoner, but I really have no idea at all where this notion is coming from that a prisoner has no rights or citizenship. I'm really having a hard time understanding your argument because I can't make sense of it.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;32483221]The act of putting someone in a jail cell is already taking away all of his citizenship and freedom. It's part of the deal - you don't abide by the law of the society you live in, you get your rights taken away.[/quote] I'm not aware of anything that can remove citizenship, except becoming a citizen of another country. In no way does imprisonment remove citizenship. Also, we should strive to remove as few rights as possible. For example, we restrict freedom of movement, but don't allow them to be beaten without reason. You would have to demonstrate the actual harm that allowing them to vote would cause. [quote]It would be rather strange to allow someone to participate in the society he went against in the first place.[/QUOTE] Then, I suppose, they should never be allowed to vote in the future? After all, while they are in prison, they're preventing from voting for things that affect their future, even if they will be out when the effects of the voting comes to pass.

After they go out of prison they finished their sentence and are not considered criminals anymore. For the time spent in jail I see no reason to give them the right to vote. They denied this right at the moment they did the crime and shouldn't be able to access it until they did the time.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;32483731]After they go out of prison they finished their sentence and are not considered criminals anymore. For the time spent in jail I see no reason to give them the right to vote. They denied this right at the moment they did the crime and shouldn't be able to access it until they did the time.[/QUOTE] You need more than "no reason not to" to punish people in a specific way. "I see no reason not to" can be used for virtually any punishment if you ignore the reasons not to.

They're still people, just bad people. So yes.

Absolutely they should be allowed to vote. It's extremely dangerous to deny someone the right to vote because they're still being "rehabilitated". How anyone can think that giving the government the power to deny the rights of citizens to vote in a democracy is a good idea is beyond me. Courts don't sentence people to a loss of citizenship and all citizens should be allowed to vote.

Yes. I agree with DudeGuyKT. A prison should be meant to rehabilitate and reintegrate a criminal into society. Look at Japan's prisons. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_system_of_Japan#Prison_population "]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_system_of_Japan#Prison_population[/URL] The population of prisoners in Japan is only about 75,000 at the end of 2009. About 59 for every 100,000 people. Compare this to the population the U.S. prison system has: [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_prison_population#Prison_population "]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_prison_population#Prison_population[/URL] At the beginning of 2008, 2,418,352 people were in jail in the U.S, a staggering 1 in jail for every 100 people. When I took a World Asia class I was shown a movie on what goes on in the prisons of Japan. They actively taught their prisoners career options like becoming a barber after their sentence was up, they had a path to take after they left. Now back to the U.S., recidivism (doing crime after being released from jail) is at an ungodly high rate of 67%. [URL="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933722.html"]http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933722.html[/URL] If we did what Japan did then those numbers would definitely take a much needed hit. As such, I contend that denying a prisoner something as simple as the right to vote would have the opposite of the final desired effect of incarceration: Reintegration into society.

Japan isn't the same culture as the US. In Japan you work and live for the group, you [I]have[/I] to be integrated to survive, which makes the idea of Prison, a place where you are effectively excluded from the rest of the world, scarier in a way and thus gives prisoners most of the time more willpower to get out of here and start again. The united states is the complete opposite, it's all about selfishness and self-serving, the economy is based on that, the culture is based on that, everything is centered around how everyone is a wolf to everyone, to the point you have to eat each other to get yourself on top and survive. You can't have a nice clean jail with cozy little hotel-room like cells in the US, it (sadly) wouldn't work.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;32484066]Japan isn't the same culture as the US. In Japan you work and live for the group, you [I]have[/I] to be integrated to survive, which makes the idea of Prison, a place where you are effectively excluded from the rest of the world, scarier in a way and thus gives prisoners most of the time more willpower to get out of here and start again. The united states is the complete opposite, it's all about selfishness and self-serving, the economy is based on that, the culture is based on that, everything is centered around how everyone is a wolf to everyone, to the point you have to eat each other to get yourself on top and survive. You can't have a nice clean jail with cozy little hotel-room like cells in the US, it (sadly) wouldn't work.[/QUOTE] I don't suppose you have any evidence of the multitude of assertions in your post?

[QUOTE=Thy Reaper;32484114]I don't suppose you have any evidence of the multitude of assertions in your post?[/QUOTE] Any history book ever ? [editline]26th September 2011[/editline] I mean do I really have to give sources about two of the culturally biggest civilization in the world ?

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;32484219]Any history book ever ? [editline]26th September 2011[/editline] I mean do I really have to give sources about two of the culturally biggest civilization in the world ?[/QUOTE] To back up assertions like: [quote]it's all about selfishness and self-serving, the economy is based on that, the culture is based on that[/quote] Some of the parts of the nation work that way, sure, but that's hardly an everyday sort of things. People need money to survive, but beyond that, it's not like everyone is a greedy bastard just looking to get his. [quote]You can't have a nice clean jail with cozy little hotel-room like cells in the US, it (sadly) wouldn't work. [/quote] Or that greed has [I]any[/I] impact on whether a different prison system would work. [quote]a place where you are effectively excluded from the rest of the world, scarier in a way and thus gives prisoners most of the time more willpower to get out of here and start again[/quote] Or how this is the actual reason the Japanese prison system is effective.

[QUOTE=Zedicus Mann;32483805]They're still people, just bad people.So yes.[/QUOTE] I hate this general opinion that all criminals or prisoners are "Bad people". They're just people who have made a mistake and broken the law in some way. They led normal lives at some point in their past - They're no more "Good" or "Bad" than you or me.

[QUOTE=Darth_GW7;32485031]I hate this general opinion that all criminals or prisoners are "Bad people". They're just people who have made a mistake and broken the law in some way. They led normal lives at some point in their past - They're no more "Good" or "Bad" than you or me.[/QUOTE] I went and pulled an armed robbery stealing loads of money that wasn't mine and killed loads of people in the process but it's okay! I am truly a good person, just ignore the innocents I killed and the money I took, I just made several bad decisions, don't judge me! What do you call serial murderers then, REALLY bad decision makers? You might not agree with this statement and that's fine by me but I consider myself a better person than most people in prison.

Actually all the prisoners are counted as voters for the current governor.. Or something like that. The more prisoners, the more support for the governor which means more funds for public institutes and the state.. Everyone benefits! But then again I'm not too educated of the American politics, so I wouldn't know the best.

[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;32485112]I went and pulled an armed robbery stealing loads of money that wasn't mine and killed loads of people in the process but it's okay! I am truly a good person, just ignore the innocents I killed and the money I took, I just made several bad decisions, don't judge me! What do you call serial murderers then, REALLY bad decision makers? You might not agree with this statement and that's fine by me but I consider myself a better person than most people in prison.[/QUOTE]Criminals are not inherently bad people, there's plenty of horrible people on both sides of a prison wall, anyone I've even know who's had a conviction either had fucked up or are fucked up, and in both cases treating them like they're less than others or a liability is counter productive to getting them back into a normal life.

Yes, because only a totalitarian state wouldn't let someone who has been incarcerated by the state vote. Think about things like people getting put into prison for political reasons.

I'd have to say no. Partly because it's a punishment, and partly because if they've done something to get them in prison then they have a warped image of society or [I]possibly[/I] have some kind of criminal instinct/mental defect.

I think they should have the right to vote, but have to go to their local polling station to vote.

It's a practical problem mainly, you would either have to have polling stations at every prison, or release the prisoners temporarily so they can vote. I'm not sure if it's worth investing in polling stations solely for people who aren't free, because the latter option may be dangerous for the public.

[QUOTE=Pocket Medic;32489023]I'd have to say no .. partly because if they've done something to get them in prison then they have a warped image of society or [I]possibly[/I] have some kind of criminal instinct/mental defect.[/QUOTE] If they have a warped view of society, and that is why they shouldn't be allowed to vote, then [I]ever[/I] being in prison should be enough to ban you from ever voting. You don't stop people from voting because they disagree with you, or they have a mental defect, or some other reasoning. What is the harm or danger of allowing prisoners to vote? Even in the United States, where the prison population is ~743 people per 100,000, that's not even 1% of the vote, so it's not like they could ever, on their own, cause something to pass that the majority disagrees with. [quote=Ond kaja]It's a practical problem mainly, you would either have to have polling stations at every prison, or release the prisoners temporarily so they can vote. I'm not sure if it's worth investing in polling stations solely for people who aren't free, because the latter option may be dangerous for the public. [/quote] Absentee voting seems to work just fine for lots of people, I'm sure the same sort of system could be used for people in prisons.

[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;32485112]I went and pulled an armed robbery stealing loads of money that wasn't mine and killed loads of people in the process but it's okay! I am truly a good person, just ignore the innocents I killed and the money I took, I just made several bad decisions, don't judge me! What do you call serial murderers then, REALLY bad decision makers?[/QUOTE] I'm confident that the majority of serial murderers had some form of mental disorder that led them to commit their crimes. People don't do things for no reason - They do what they think is right and just for them to do, and sometimes their views contradict with that of the law, and they commit crimes. They're not "Bad" or "Evil".

[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;32479876]Make something stupid illegal and when people go to jail for it make sure they can't vote so they can't over turn it. No a prisoners opinion should matter just as much as anyones.[/QUOTE] I'm not talking about a permanent removal of their right to vote. Just during their term in prison if their sentence is long enough (years long, that kind of thing). Not many petty crimes warrant a years imprisonment from what I know, so it wouldn't be a problem then.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;32483731]For the time spent in jail I see no reason to give them the right to vote.[/QUOTE] Voting is a fundamental right. This is not a matter of having reasons to allow to them vote, it's a matter to having reasons to prevent them from voting.

In my opinion, people who are only in prison for minor offenses should be able to vote. People who have murdered, rape, etc. should not be allowed to vote because of the severity of the actions. Of course, there should be exceptions. Since I don't know how every prison system in America works, I can't say I'm at liberty to discuss who should be in charge of it.

thought about this the past few days and i have to say yes at first it seemed like common sense to say no, but the idea of taking away someone's right to participate in a republic (and i say republic because the idea of true "democracy" in america is misleading) because they broke the law is completely insane considering the fact that all the laws are entirely arbitrary, and even more crazy when you realize all the stupid little things (drug possession) that can get you put away for a long time. [editline]26th September 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=sonny99;32492557]In my opinion, people who are only in prison for minor offenses should be able to vote. People who have murdered, rape, etc. should not be allowed to vote because of the severity of the actions. Of course, there should be exceptions. Since I don't know how every prison system in America works, I can't say I'm at liberty to discuss who should be in charge of it.[/QUOTE] yeah but who are you to decide who gets to vote and who doesn't? its completely arbitrary, not to mention the fact that the people imprisoned might not be entirely horrible people in the first place. not that there's any social justification for murder, but things aren't so black and white that the killer is the bad guy and the victim was an innocent bystander. even some people imprisoned for rape are innocent, the justice system isn't perfect.