The Act Of Losing The Right For Vote For Inmates

The practice of prohibiting felons, especially former felons, from voting is anti-democratic, anti-constitutional, and antipathetic. A felon should be permitted to vote, assuming the felon is not a psychopath. Psychopaths are irresponsible, untrustworthy, and if they were allowed to vote, they may influence society in negative ways by voting for the politicians less tough on crime, for example. However, if a democracy is so frail that it cannot withstand the votes of those who are incarcerated, then something is very wrong with the democracy and needs rectifying.

There are many ex-felon’s in past years that could not vote as stated “ Because of America’s unique rules, some 3.5-4 million citizens as of 2000 and 2004 respectively are out of prison, but not allowed to vote” (Enten 6). Millions of ex-felon citizens have been denied their right to vote, which is wrong. The good and the bad makes up the society and the world. People who committed these felonies and have paid their dues back to the society, may not be the same person they were when committed the crime. If the individual has completed their sentence, along with probation and parole, which then means they are safe to return to society and resume back to their civilized life, their right to vote should come back with it.

“We let ex-convicts marry, reproduce, buy beer, own property and drive. They don’t lose their freedom of religion, their right against self-incrimination… they can’t be trusted to help choose our leaders… If we thought criminals could never be reformed, we wouldn’t let them out of prison in the first place (Chapman, Steve).” Many believe that felons should be able to vote due to the fact that they served their time in prison and already received their consequence. When felons already served their time, they are told they have their “freedom”. Yet, they do not have the same rights they did before they were arrested. Felons have paid enough of a price by serving their assigned sentence which shouldn’t lead

I believe felons can change or become a better person. Examples, Ethea Farahkhan who is now 55 years old once was a felony, but now a change person with a six grandchildren and working with The NAACP to help restore former felons the right to vote. However, Farahkhan is still lacking the right to vote after being released a month in 1985 up to now, she has not been given the right to vote. Although, she is a self-esteem woman who is doing all she can (1). She still away from trouble and other illegal act but she has not been given the right to vote yet. Another person who is struggling with the same problem is Joseph Hayden an ex-felons who is now a changed person working as director of NLPCA to help people with drug abuse problem, but he too have is still denied the voting rights (1). As Conyers said diminishing the legitimacy of our democratic process, denying voting rights to ex-offenders is inconsistent with the goal of rehabilitation

The votes of felons are also relevant enough that if they were permitted to engage in democracy, they could change political outcomes. While disenfranchised felons only make up a little over 2% of the voting age population, their votes have been found to have enough influence to affect elections. Since those convicted of felonies are likely to be of a minority race or poor, it is likely felon disenfranchisement laws take away votes from the Democratic party and Independent votes. People of color make up roughly 60 percent of the prison population in the U.S. and make up larger proportions of the Democratic party than they do Republican or Independent (Kerby, 2012). Nearly 90% of the Republican party is white, 70% of Independent parties are

Prisoners in the UK have been banned from voting for many years. There are also other European countries like Russia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Luxembourg and Romania who have also banned prison voting. However recently in the UK there has been debates between MPs and society on whether continuing to ban prisoners from having the right to vote goes against their human rights. The European Court of Human Rights is now also involved and are insisting that the UK can no longer keep this ban in place. In this essay I will discuss the arguments for and against prison voting and who supports each side.

Although some states believe that voting is a privilege that can be taken away after intolerable behavior, ex-criminals should be given voting rights because they are heavily impacted by government decisions, the vote is consequently taken away from low income, minority factions, and the US has a historical record of disenfranchising people regarding their race, color, previous servitude, and sex, so we have reason to question the disenfranchisement of other minorities.

Firstly, I believe that criminals should keep their citizenship while incarcerated. This means that they would still be able to vote while in jail, and would keep all their usual rights upon leaving. This change would dramatically alter how campaigning is done. Politicians may develop kinder attitudes towards incarcerated persons and maybe even propose ways to better the jail system. They may even try to make the punishment system more effective, as opposed to the simple sitting in cells type of standard we hold now. A surprising amount of people in the US are incarcerated and if they could vote, they would have no opposition to doing so.

The same conclusion reached scholar Jason McClurg, he found that right to vote is deprived from the prisoners according to the idea of “social contract”. All people in society should have a common goal- a welfare of society. Those who have another goal or break the rules of society and commit actions that contradict to understanding of welfare, should be excluded from the democratic society and prerogatives, which are provided by democratic society.

In my opinion an inmate does not deserve the right to vote. They should be denied to vote by all means during incarceration. Prisons are meant to establish punishment. And with that punishment the loss of freedom and most of the rights that freedom offers. In the United States two states out of our fifty states allow prisoners to vote while being in jail and that is Vermont and Maine. Why should they still allow someone inside prison to have the chance to pick who should govern us? Why should we trust a person who committed a crime to have a say in voting? They made the decision to lose their freedom when they made the choice to go to jail. I would not want someone I do not trust to decide on my health care, my rights, or laws. If minors have

Historically, the main reasonwhy prison inmates are disqualified from participating in election in the Great Britain is mostly in a common assumption that the base of domestic society is a sober contract, obligating everyone to follow the law. According to Plannic (1987 quoted in Blais, Massicotte, Yoshinaka 2001) "only citizens have the right to vote, and it would not be reasonable to consider criminals as citizens". Thus, people who break it forfeit all the rights of citizens (Blais,

People are incarcerated for different crimes some a lot more severe than others. For example, a single parent was sentenced to 3 months for the theft of a pair of jeans worth £10 (BBC News, 2011). However, while these are viable points and questions, the government allowing certain individuals in prisons to vote could be a complicated decision. Felons’ circumstances are not simply black and white; there can be a grey area with individual cases. Appropriate retribution is said to only occur when an appropriate punishment is given for the crime (Hegel, 1965). This makes it difficult to judge who has committed a serious enough offence to enable them to be stripped of their right to vote. Streeter said, the UK decided hundreds of years ago that prisoners should not have the right to vote’ (Streeter, 2011). This is a settled view in this country which has been accepted since 1870 (Hollobone, 2011). ‘Do we want convicted murderers, rapists and paedophiles to be given the vote?’ (BBC News, 2010). In terms of making the right decision and having it morally and politically justifiable, felons should not be allowed to vote and it is nonsensical to think they should.

In the UK, a large proportion of convicted offenders are being denied the right to vote in local or national elections while they are incarcerated. There are few who qualify to vote, such as people in remand and people sentenced for non-payment of fines and contempt of court, but the numbers are still high as over 48,000 prisoners are being disenfranchised (Easton, 2010). The UK’s decision to implement this blanket ban, regardless of the prisoner’s crime and sentence, was deemed unlawful by the European Courts in 2004 when ex-prisoner John Hirst sued the British Government for denying his right to vote, he put

Should all prisoners be given the right to vote or should it be limited only to some or to none at all? Provide a reasoned argument for your decision.

The American government tries to get as many people in the general public to vote. However, 6.1 million votes are made invalid because of the fact that people serving penal sentences are denied the right to vote. Statistics actually projected if felons were allowed to vote in the United States of America the presidential election would have had a turn for a Hillary Clinton outcome . If felony disenfranchisement were to be abolished in the United States a certain 45th