"No prisoner should have the vote"

You claim that, when we imprison somebody, we separate them from society. This is, to an extent, true; we add further restrictions to the freedom of actions that law-abiding citizens enjoy. This is in order to protect society from the wrongdoers, and is of course reasonable – everybody is restricted to the extent that it protects society, in that even whilst free we may not have total freedom of actions. We may, however, exercise without limitation our right to freedom of speech. This is the reason why a debate like this may even take place. The law should be able to determine what is unacceptably damaging to society, but not who may determine the law – it is not the place of the government to police thoughts, as Orwell deftly illustrates in his novel 1984. Matters of defining the law should not be restricted by the law itself, or the democratic process is impeded. Thus, whilst it is reasonable to claim that taking away some freedom of action is justified towards prisoners being dissuaded from offending and towards protecting innocent law-abiding civilians, it cannot be justified to take away their vote. Fine, stop them playing golf – don’t silence them. After all, the vote is no more of an action than speaking to – or writing to – a local representative; both allow an individual to make tangible changes to society, but are no more than expressing their opinion. Representatives provide the voice of their electorate in matters of law. They are a mouthpiece for opinions, which are protected dearly by freedom of speech. My point, when claiming preventing people who are imprisoned for fraud from voting is unfair, is that there is no proportion in punishment of this nature. One would expect that such a criminal would be punished less severely than a murderer, say, in all other ways of punishment – why is the removal of a voice in the corridors of power a blanket punishment? Your point about the nature of prison as a deterrent is a valid one – this is one of its most vital roles. I would argue however that sadly the demographics who are most likely to be imprisoned are the ones that the system has failed; clearly, as they have been driven to crime, this is the case*. Also of sadness is the disproportionate amount of the poorest and least educated in prison. As the general population of for example the UK has a turnout of just 65%** it is unlikely that would-be offenders exercise their right to vote in the first place, let alone see the potential to lose it as a deterrent for breaking the law. In fact I might argue that, on the contrary, the right for prisoners to vote would lower crime rates. Take for example Bastøy Prison in Norway***, which has the lowest reoffending rates in Europe – if not the world. There, prisoners are not simply punished – they are given back rights according to behaviour, in preparation for becoming reasonable members of a functional society. This strongly suggests that any rights that reconnect prisoners to organised society will be ultimately more fruitful for stopping crime in the manner of dissuading reoffenders than not having these rights would be in terms of dissuading offenders in the first place. *see www. parliament. uk/briefing-papers/SN04334. pdf for a breakdown of exact demographics etc. for Britain **. http://ukpolitical.info... ***. http://www.bbc.co.uk...