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Should prisoners have the right to vote?

Philosophy Tube brought up an interesting political and philosophical subject that is rarely often discussed.



I'd like to see what you guys think about this.
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Comments

  • My thought is such: the purpose of voting in a democracy is to allow the citizens to choose what is right for their society. The majority of people in prison have most likely made some amount of poor life decisions, should these people be allowed to help make decisions for their society? I think no.

    But to be fair I also think stupid people shouldn't vote, so take that with a grain of salt.
  • The other factor in some states you don't get the ability to vote again when you are released from prison automatically and that is truly wrong. Once you serve your time you should have your voting rights restored.
  • Cremlian said:

    The other factor in some states you don't get the ability to vote again when you are released from prison automatically and that is truly wrong. Once you serve your time you should have your voting rights restored.

    Definitely, given that the point of prison is supposed to be rehabilitation so in theory previous decision making related issues should be fixed.
  • Not if you were in jail because of elections fraud.
  • Apreche said:

    Not if you were in jail because of elections fraud.

    If you have been rehabilitated all urge to again commit voter fraud should be gone or at least within a manageable level. Whether or the current prison system does that or not is a separate argument.
  • Apreche said:

    Not if you were in jail because of elections fraud.

    If you have been rehabilitated all urge to again commit voter fraud should be gone or at least within a manageable level. Whether or the current prison system does that or not is a separate argument.
    Even if you've been rehabilitated, I still think there are some consequences that should be permanent. They might not be fair to the person receiving the punishment, but they are for the protection of the rest of society.

    For example, someone kills someone while drunk driving. They go to jail. They actually get rehabilitated. They should still never be allowed to drive or drink again for the rest of their lives. Sure, maybe they can do both safely. But they can also live a meaningful and fulfilling life without doing either, so for the sake of the rest of us, better that they don't.
  • If it's about protecting the rest of society, why does it matter whether they killed someone? After all, anyone who drives drunk is a risk to society.

    If anything, someone who kills someone else as a result of drink driving is probably far less likely to do the same thing in the future, because of the lasting psychological effect that experience is going to have on them. By comparison, people who have driven drunk without having any kind of accident likely pose a much greater risk to society, since they will erroneously underestimate just how dangerous it is.
  • Daikun said:

    I'd like to see what you guys think about this.

    I think it's a pretty straightforward issue. Denying prisoners the right to vote is a clear violation of human rights, and most of the reasons people give for it tend to be weak rationalizations. It's just another one of those all-too-common "tough on crime" policies that don't actually work...
  • Apreche said:

    Apreche said:

    Not if you were in jail because of elections fraud.

    If you have been rehabilitated all urge to again commit voter fraud should be gone or at least within a manageable level. Whether or the current prison system does that or not is a separate argument.
    Even if you've been rehabilitated, I still think there are some consequences that should be permanent. They might not be fair to the person receiving the punishment, but they are for the protection of the rest of society.

    For example, someone kills someone while drunk driving. They go to jail. They actually get rehabilitated. They should still never be allowed to drive or drink again for the rest of their lives. Sure, maybe they can do both safely. But they can also live a meaningful and fulfilling life without doing either, so for the sake of the rest of us, better that they don't.
    While I don't disagree with you completely, you're looking at this from a very "city-specific" point of view. If preventing recidivism is one of the major goals of rehabilitation, we shouldn't prevent a rehabilitated criminal from driving a car, even if that person was convicted of killing someone while drunk.

    Unless you live in a major metropolitan area with good public transportation, without a car, you're not going to be employed. Unemployment leads to crime. It is actually in society's best interests to allow people to drive if it means they can earn a living.
  • Unless you live in a major metropolitan area with good public transportation, without a car, you're not going to be employed. Unemployment leads to crime. It is actually in society's best interests to allow people to drive if it means they can earn a living.

    What about old people?

    Elderly drivers kill regularly, and are a danger to those around them. Is the mere fact that most places in the US have garbage mass transit legitimate reason to leave these extremely dangerous drivers on the road killing others?

  • Rym said:

    Unless you live in a major metropolitan area with good public transportation, without a car, you're not going to be employed. Unemployment leads to crime. It is actually in society's best interests to allow people to drive if it means they can earn a living.

    What about old people?

    Elderly drivers kill regularly, and are a danger to those around them. Is the mere fact that most places in the US have garbage mass transit legitimate reason to leave these extremely dangerous drivers on the road killing others?

    I agree with you that old people can be dangerous drivers. We should have a system in place where people have to reapply for their drivers licenses every couple of years, after you turn a certain age, something.

    But to compare old people with drunk driving criminals is conflating two very different things... Old people are dangerous drivers because they're old. To use Scott's example, a drunk driver is dangerous because of alcohol, not because the driver is inherently dangerous. Someone who drives drunk and kills someone, goes to prison, and comes out years later is not inherently dangerous unless that person starts drinking again.

    Old people are mostly retired or don't work so I don't think society has to worry about a sudden spike in geriatric crime sprees. Old people are generally less mobile as they get older so even if they drive, they drive infrequently. There are also assisted living communities specifically for old people that provide transportation to the grocery store, pharmacy, doctor, mall, etc.

    By not allowing a former criminal to drive, that person basically has no other options other than living in a city, getting help from other people, or being unemployed. I can't cite you specific numbers but off the top of my head I would wager that an unemployed former criminal is more likely to commit a crime than an employed former criminal.
  • edited October 2015
    Federal mandate for quality public transit. If a place can't be lived in without owning a car, it's not suitable for living.

    Also, make government not corrupt.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • edited October 2015
    Apreche said:

    Federal mandate for quality public transit. If a place can't be lived in without owning a car, it's not suitable for living.

    Also, make government not corrupt.

    While I agree with the sentiment most smaller cities/towns are laid out like fucking garbage, like the place my parents are retiring to. The city is mostly elderly retired people who want to live in the desert and young Mormon couples who just want to make a billion babies in life. But the city is spread out so fucking much and has all these stupid winding streets everywhere that are fine for cars but don't work very well for busses. Maybe if they had an armada of those like shuttle busses that might work out alright but any better transit would be difficult to manage.

    Also the city is so spread out because its surrounded by useless desert land so the place is huge for only having like 150000 or so people.
    Post edited by MATATAT on
  • If the corruption problem in our society is fixed, and the justice system is fixed, how many people will really be in jail? How horrible would someone have to be to actually be a convicted felon in a just society?

    Only the worst possible humans. If even after rehabilitation, the freedom they regain is somehow limited and involves some amount of suffering for the rest of their lives in the US, such as no car driving, that is fine. Car driving isn't a right, it's a privilege. If the just not-corrupt society can't also solve the problem of public transportation, forcing some people to live either in a city, or with difficulty, is not a great concern.
  • What about repeat offenders? Drunk drivers tend to have extremely high recidivism rates*. If that is the case, then would you argue that they should still be allowed to drive upon release?

    People who drive drunk even once are a danger to those around them, as they are likely to do so again. At what threshold is this danger no longer acceptable? Is "release from prison, but prohibition of ever driving again" better than "not released from prison?"


    *
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2853607/
    http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr/2007HardCoreDrinkingDriverProfile.pdf
  • To answer the original question: Yes.
  • RymRym
    edited October 2015

    To answer the original question: Yes.

    I am actually OK with "no" being the answer, but it requires.

    1. A good case

    2. SCOTUS to actually treat prisoners as a suspect class


    Discrete and insular minorities, even with the right to vote, are unable in practice to defend themselves from the policies of the majority electorally. Thus, they are afforded additional protection by the courts.



    I am not opposed to felony prisoners losing the right to vote (while they're in prison), but they definitely deserve and require elevated protection from the courts if that is the case.

    Of course, a lot of people are felony prisoners for things that shouldn't be felonies. A lot of people are also guilty of felonies because society fucked them over. Prison is the worst place for those people to be. But that's a whole separate debate.


    I don't think #2 is happening enough, so I'd rather let them vote. But here's the question: what district do they count in for voting?
    Post edited by Rym on
  • Rym said:

    But here's the question: what district do they count in for voting?

    Absentee ballots from the district they lived in prior to going to prison, which is how ex-pats vote if I'm not mistaken.
  • Banta said:

    Rym said:

    But here's the question: what district do they count in for voting?

    Absentee ballots from the district they lived in prior to going to prison, which is how ex-pats vote if I'm not mistaken.
    But is that right?

    That diffuses their vote to the point that they likely can't directly affect the policies of the prison, which is where they actually live.

  • Rym said:

    But is that right?

    That diffuses their vote to the point that they likely can't directly affect the policies of the prison, which is where they actually live.

    It's not. It puts a burden on the counties that house them while not giving any political advantage.

    It's done to prevent gerrymandering. I get it. A small densely populated area in an otherwise rural county is a golden goose.
  • edited October 2015
    Follow-up to the video in the OP: Comment responses!
    Post edited by Daikun on
  • A solid argument could be made that prison is used deliberately as a method of disenfranchisement in the United States by The Usual Suspects for the Usual Reasons.
  • I don't appreciate you using Keyser Soze's good name in relation to Them.
  • How about we either drastically reduce our imprisonment.

    Or, if we're committed to being a prison/police state, consider all prison populations together their own state and let them vote/interact as a state.
  • Rym said:

    How about we either drastically reduce our imprisonment.

    Or, if we're committed to being a prison/police state, consider all prison populations together their own state and let them vote/interact as a state.

    Escape from New York?
  • New York's too valuable to use for a big prison. More like Escape from Florida.
  • Which fictional prison planet is your favorite?

    I like the Kyln.

    http://marvel.com/universe/Kyln
    Constructed at the time of the universe's Creation Event, the "Kyln Moons" were massive, interconnected spheres that existed at the Crunch cascade, the constantly expanding edge of the positive matter universe. The Kyln's architect remained unknown. Galactus used the Kyln to imprison the Proemial Gods, Aegis (Lady of All Sorrows) and Tenebrous (of the Darkness in Between). Galactus imprisoned his enemies within the Crèche, where state-of-the-art stasis confinement cocoons were powered by energies generated by the Crunch. Over the millennia, the Kyln had served as a prison for criminals and miscreants from across the universe too powerful to be held elsewhere.
  • That's cool, but Crematoria is my jam.
  • Why don't we just make the moon a penal colony?
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