Sidebar: prisoner voting

There's a huge furore over prisoner voting at the moment, what with the European Court of Human Rights ruling that a blanket ban on their voting violates their rights (the story, from The Guardian). David Cameron said it makes him physically sick to consider the issue and politicians from both sides of the House are lining up to compete in a game of one-upmanship about the intensity of their physical reactions to what are, really, quite trivial issues.

I don't mean to be one of those who doesn't think that governments should ever do more than one thing at a time. For example, I think Lords reform was a perfectly reasonable thing to do as long as nobody's downing tools on the economy. But, really, this is a disproportionate waste of time. So let me use this sidebar to do two things:

• Votes are taken away, not given away. This is key. Because the burden should be on government to justify why someone can't vote, rather than it being at their luxury as to whether someone can.
• The ECHR has not suggested giving the likes of Ian Huntley and other notorious prisoners the right to vote. This is also important, because when you take those people out of the equation, you understand the ruling to not be on par with US Supreme Court-style judicial activism but is instead a modest suggestion.

So, quickly:

Votes must be taken away, not given away

It's taken as a given in our society that once you're born into it, you're given certain rights by virtue of being a human being and by being a member of our society. And, once you're an adult member of that society, there should be a presumption that you are allowed to express yourself to influence that society so that it can change to, or stay as, the society you want your family and friends to live in and prosper in.

Why is this important? Because you should operate on a blacklist when it comes to voting, so that people who don't like the government can vote against it. If you instead talk about giving people the vote, pound to a penny, the vote magically ends up with people who like the ones currently deciding who gets it. This is an understandable, if regrettable, part of human nature and can happen without malevolent plans on the part of an evil dictator. So don't cry Godwin's Law, I'm not saying that not giving prisoners the vote is the beginning of a slippery slope to tyranny.

What I am saying is that this argument is being framed in the wrong way, if only subtly. Really, Parliament is not voting on whether to give some prisoners the right to vote but instead voting on whether to return it to some of them.

This is really a modest, reasonable suggestion

For reasons that probably are fairly radical, I wouldn't object to giving all prisoners the right to vote -- or rather, I would support returning their right to vote. But I understand that people are strongly and justifiably opposed to that notion and I understand that I'm in a very small minority of people who share that view.

But nobody is suggesting that. And that's perfectly reasonable. I understand that if you murder someone, you demonstrate that you're not capable of living in a society. (Because at the base of it all, society is really just a mutual agreement to not harm anyone else in that society.) So, if you can't take part in the society, you're not fit to have a say in how it's governed. That's a wholly reasonable point of view. I accept it as reasonable in the case of all crimes where a victim can be properly said to exist. So, theft, fraud, actual and grievous bodily harm and so on all to a greater or lesser extent show that you can't accept the fundamental principle of society so it is effectively pointless for you to take part -- if not outright wrong.

Of course, we also say that in the case of most crimes that there are fixed penalties and, once they are duly served, we say that you can have another go of demonstrating that you can 'do' society. So people get the right to vote  back in these instances after a fixed period.

But what about  the case of victimless crimes? I'll take just one counter-example because if there's a prisoner that exists where we think the criminal in question hasn't demonstrated an inability to take part in society, then the blanket ban on prisoner voting is in fact arbitrary and should be modified -- even if just in this one instance.

Let's take cannabis, which 29.6% of all adults in the UK admit to having used at some point in their lives. (source) The use of cannabis is subject to an escalator, where the first use is subject to a warning, through to fines, then imprisonment of up to five years. (source -- also this article doesn't constitute legal advice) For those five years, is it reasonable for a person serving time for cannabis use alone to lose the vote? Do we think that the use of cannabis constitutes a reckless abandon of the principle of civilisation? The reason I bring up the statistic is that the sheer number of people who have used it mean that it seems obvious that we don't think cannabis use constitutes such a violation. Unless you're caught (a few times). Now, unlike a murder, where if you found out someone had committed that crime where they hadn't been caught you'd certainly consider ringing the police, I doubt that you would do the same in the case of cannabis use.

Why don't we? Well, cannabis use poses no greater risk to other people than, say, drinking alcohol or smoking a cigarette. Both of these things carry some risk but we tolerate it. So if it poses no huge risk, then you are demonstrating the ability to live your life without diminishing anyone else's enjoyment of it to the point that the law need get involved. The same thing doesn't apply to selling the drug (arguably), or committing crimes as a result of your taking them or to fuel your use of it. (Although I've never seen Harold and Kumar in The Wire, have you?)

So, if the only difference between you and the 30% of UK citizens who have also tried cannabis is that you got caught, it does strike me as rather arbitrary that you lose your right to vote -- even if we can accept you should be incarcerated for this offence (which is a whole other debate which I won't get into).

Conclusion (or, the TL;DR)

So, the idea that you should lose your right to vote because you've committed any single criminal offence is arbitrary. There are different types of offences, varying in the degree to which it can be said you're not fit to take part in society or  influence it (which seems to be the line of argument for disenfranchising someone). It doesn't seem fair that all these people lose the right to vote, which is the point the court is making.

Now, watch the debate in Parliament and see if anyone manages to not bleed from the eyes as they consider the issue -- we managed, why can't they?