"No prisoner should have the vote"

Consider, if you will, that you have committed minor fraud, and have received a small sentence. You spend your time in prison across the corridor from a serial killer. Each day that passes makes you a lot closer to your release than each day does for the killer, and each hardship of prison you experience will be experienced for much longer by the killer after you are released, as is right and fair. However, your sentence happens to overlap with a General Election, and both you and the murderer are equally kept from voting. Would this sound unfair? The International Declaration of Human Rights agrees that yes, this is the case. The lack of differentiation when allotting this punishment and the heavy-handed nature of the voting restriction, purely on the basis of being in prison, is discriminatory. When a recent article in the Guardian revealed that in some prisons reoffending rates top 70%, it becomes ever clearer that the most important aspect of punishment for crime is the rehabilitation that follows, in order to prevent the cycle of repeating offences and thus drastically reduce crime rates. Thus, whilst a popular view opposing giving any prisoners the vote argues that it undermines the punishment of being separated from society, I would argue that in taking the vote away from all prisoners you take away a vital, if symbolic, way of rebuilding links to organised society and participation in everyday life. The vote alone would not be entirely sufficient to prevent prisoners from reoffending, but is a simple step with other benefits in terms of rights issues. Those who see the vote being taken away as a punishment fail to make an important differentiation. Whilst to lock someone up is to further limit their freedom of actions, to take away their vote and thus their representation in parliament is to limit their voice and their freedom of speech. No crime deserves the revoking of the right to freedom of speech, no matter how severe. There may be cases for the criminally insane or mentally infirm who are unable to make a rational choice when voting to lose this right, but not for the sane of mind who have wronged. This is because the legality of actions and the morality of actions often do not overlap. Whilst the law (and, I would hope, society) believes certain actions wrong, it may be the individual’s opinion differs. Fine, lock them up, as they should not have freedom of actions if we are to keep society in order and protect everybody's rights to freedom from those who would take them away. However, their right to express these views is inalienable. Another common argument against giving the vote to prisoners claims that they would only vote in their own interests, voting for lower sentences and better conditions. The first stumbling block for this argument is that in theory everyone does. A rich person will vote for low taxes, a poor person for more welfare, so why not a prisoner for less laws and shorter prison stays? Whether this is an objectionable use of a vote or not, the right to vote this way is an option for everyone, and should not affect the right of any demographic to vote. Crucially, the number of prisoners in the UK as of 2010 was 85000, compared with the total UK population of 61.8 million – meaning prisoners would make up 0.1% of the population. The votes of prisoners will not bring into effect the collapse of society; they are a drop in the ocean of representational politics.