My problem with not allowing prisoners to vote is that it takes away the prisoners ability to change the system that is imprisoning them. Government gets it's legitimacy from it's citizens with the understanding that any law passed that is against the nations interests will get overturned and the people responsible fired come next election. but if you deny the vote to those negatively affected by the law that law becomes illegitimate because there is no recourse against it.
+pie4dessert Well said. My thoughts go immediately to the number of people imprisoned here in NZ for cannabis use or possession. While in other countries laws are being changed to accommodate its use, the people most affected and most vocal on the subject here, have no voting rights to affect the government on what they must feel is an unnatural law. There are other arguments surrounding marijuana use, but they could be political prisoners in some sense.
+Kikuli Kokuli correct; murder is wrong because we collectively agree it's wrong but, if we don't let the murders have their say too we are missing one of the most important demographics for that law. Take for example "Jim Crow" laws, which for those not familiar with american history were laws meant to keep African Americans inferior under the law in the post slavery south, the laws clearly negatively affected African Americans but as great lengths were taken from letting them vote the laws wouldn't change for 100 years. Silencing any demographic or any opinion is always wrong including murderers.
+Kikuli Kokuli Yes. That might seem counterintuitive but suppose you lived in a country where if everyone was allowed to vote a majority would support murder being legal. To keep it illegal would be undemocratic even if in the minorities opinion it would be illegitimate to legalise it.
+Alex Klintebo I agree that legal murder would be a bad thing and i would not support a politician who endorsed it. however just because i believe something is bad does not make it inherently so. if the majority believe murder should be legal then it should be that's what democracy means. But likewise in a society where murder is legal i would still like the chance to vote for an anti-murder candidate even thought i am in the minority.
A few more reasons why prisoners should have the right to vote (in the U.S., where I live, at least): First of all, the census counts prisoners, which means that their presence is contributing to how many electoral votes a state gets or how the representatives are distributed. The fact that they're being represented in the election is inconsistent with not allowing them to vote. Second, when prisoners get out of jail, they still have to live in the country run by the politicians that they may or may not have voted for.
I think they should be forced to vote. Make them take some ownership in the society that they damaged and will eventually return to. Force them to pay attention to the issues that society cares about and to act to affect them in the most basic legal way. Voting is the duty of the people; don't let these guys shirk their responsibility any more than they already have.
Timaeus Bouma they way you just insulted him with your responce seems childish doesnt it? He expressed his opinion amd you insulted him amd you think he is the one that shouldnt vote.....strange amd why do you pair felons with rapists and murders? Are those the only felony charges there are? That seems simplistic and devoid of the required effort needed to really discus this issue. Also why do you say infant minds? Have u studied the average IQ inmates? Have you visited a prison or met a variety of inmates. I think people need groups to put down to make them selfs feel better. there is no logical reason to deny voting access to felons. It serves no value as a punishment and it is an inconsitant punishment if it even can be considered one. Also it is unamerican. the whole point of our republic is fair and equal representation and freedom. The judge didnt sentence them to loosing this right. How is it fair that a thief, a drunk driver and a murderer all get the same punishment in regards to voting? These issues are completely seperate and i think you would have a hard time establishing a logical arguement otherwise that isnt steeped in emotion and feeling instead of facts and logic. Feel free to prove me wrong though i would love to understand your opinion.
most people in prison are there for non violent crimes linked to the failed drug war poverty prostution and in many cases the government has failed these people
This video gave me a really strong opinion about something I had never really thought about before, I kinda just took it for granted that 'that's the way it is'. It really does seem like extra punishment purely based off the happenstance of when you are arrested, not unlike how you're more likely to get harsher sentences during a judge's election year in the US. Thank you so much, this is invaluable.
I know this is an old comment, but I just wanted to point out that it's actually worse than that in the US. Here in America, if you are convicted of a felony, you can NEVER vote ever again, even after you're out of jail. The whole system is super fucked up and just inviting abuses of power.
@@MagiciteHeart Because replying after a year is a thing: Actually, it depends on the state. IIRC, Virginia=never vote. Florida was de-facto never vote. California restored voting rights post sentence, and Vermont... lets prisoners vote.
Here in Finland prisoners have been allowed to vote since 1970. In a democracy all citizens should be allowed to vote. Though there could be people with radical idealogies, I think it's safe to say that they are a very small minority. But even they are (or should be) allowed to have a voice, otherwise it's a mockery of democracy.
People attending Public Schools, in the US, are not allowed to vote, though they are in "institutional buildings", and in an "institutional context"; why? because they do not meet "age requirements", stipulated to exist. while students in "institutional settings", might seem to be in an ideal location, - to both engage local gov workers, and international workers, about the facts and facets of an election, and participate directly, - policies discourage and prevent this, and laws disallow voting, because of age requirement limitations...
Government: "We're a democracy! If you think a law is unjust/dumb, you can always vote to change it!" Also government: "Oh btw if you break said unjust/dumb laws you're not allowed to vote." Sounds like the perfect recipe for stifling political reform.
One additional argument in favor of allowing prisoners to vote: in a democracy, laws (and what constitutes a crime) can be changed by activism and voting. If a prisoner is a criminal because the law is unfair, the prisoner has no democratic opportunity to support law changes.
I think prisoners should be allowed to vote. The obvious problem with denying them the vote is with political prisoners. If there is a law that results in all people of a given political view being imprisoned, they then have no avenue to get that law over-turned. I must add here that I feel the same way about non-citizens resident in a country. Non-citizen residents should also get a vote. They are affected by laws and politics, and should have a say in those laws. Decisions on who should be allowed to become a citizen and how non-citizens are treated are typically made in an unfair manner.
I think Clegg makes a huge mistake in saying that only those that are loyal to the state should be allowed to vote because that describes a larger group of people than just prisoners. Normal citizens of the U.S. or the U.K. that have not broken the law but do not necessarily have the nation's "best interests at heart" would fall under this description as well. Also who determines what a nation's best interests are? Continuing along this line, couldn't it be argued that any citizen that is a member of a political party not in power at the moment doesn't have the "best interests of the republic at heart" since they are not the interests of those who wield the majority of the political power/determine the country's political agenda? It seems like Clegg is setting himself up for or working towards some sort of conditional democracy that's disturbingly nationalistic and fickle. Great video, Olly :) XXx
I think it's a really scary thing that the prison system is something we just don't think about (I do, but I might be an axception). People go to prison and they kinda disappear to that different world that's separated from the rest and nobody gives much thought to what happens to them in there and that just frustrates me. I know it's not quite that extreme, I know there are people standing up for prisoners but still... It's not a topic that would get much sympathy (because people in prison and criminals and therefore "bad people") so there is hardly any public campaigns etc.
@Herald of Unicron here we can see the majestic troll in its natural habitat - the youtube comment section. This particular individual of the subspecies trollorius youtubicus violencia calls for radical violent action while spurting out hateful messages as an answer to a very polite and thoughtful comment. Although the troll tries to hide behind "questions", the use of language quickly dismantles its disguise and leaves him open to attacks by other predators, like Sith Potatoes
This is really good that in the UK you're thinking about this. Meanwhile in Jamaica, I'm thinking about how I can convince people that prisoners deserve to be treated like human beings! (Btw I know text doesn't convey emotion so... I genuinely feel it's a good thing; I'm not trying to be snarky or sarcastic.) I mean obviously...I think prisoners should be given the right to vote. These are some great arguments here, really well put together. I'll even steal a few of them. Thanks! Sidenote...When is youtube getting emoji??????
@@TGreyhair yes off course, I think we should take responsibility for the flaws in our community/society amd stop rubbing salt in the wounds of those we've failed
+Gary Edwards I don't think it would take long to build a reasonable argument for having a judicial system, if that is what you are saying. Consider the situation of trying to have a country without one: chaos.
+Jon Durrant I don't think this is about the yes or no of a judicial system, but about weather punishment has any place in it; especially if it serves neither as a deterrent nor as a tool for rehabilitation.
+lars0me Fair enough although I think it would be difficult to remove punishment entirely, rehabilitation at the least deprives the subject of liberty while other people need to be isolated so they don't murder people which is clearly punishment. There's also the concern of fairness.
+Jon Durrant Actually, a study done here in Scandinavia on 100+ inmates over a 10 year period, showed that psychiatric therapy, job counseling and training, a minimum wage salary (for work done and not just being behind bars) and a helping hand in preparing post-prison life (finding an apartment, a job, buying furniture online and so on, that'll be waiting the moment a person is released), reduced recidivism from 45-35% down to roughly 5%. And while it did cost more per day per inmate, almost half was released early for going above and beyond in their rehabilitation, while the other half shared in the same 5% recidivism rate. All in all, this kinda humane and help oriented rehabilitation was estimated to shave 20 and 25% off the yearly budget, while actually making the judicial system better. Unfortunately, the politicians presented with this thought it was too complicated, so nothing was done... Aka, they were too lazy to bother doing their job.
Keeping inmates connected and invested in society as a whole is a huge reason for so many repeat offenders. Voting is a huge way to make them feel like they have put time and energy into thinking about issues and problems outside of them selves and hopefully that would lead to them thinking about the bigger picture if they are presented with an opportunity to commit a crime.
Thank you for standing up for an issue that I think people/politicians often find difficult to stand up for - they can easily be accused of standing up for the 'morally undeserving'. But I think the bigger (yet equally unlikely to be solved) issue is criminal records and employment prospects. Put simply, people defend criminal records being viewable by employers as either good for the company to know if they're employing unscrupulous characters or that criminals deserve it. Consequentially, the greater harm to society surely is making rehabilitation less-likely/possible, rather than if those people are trustworthy - and Deontologically, if someone has served their sentence then either they've paid off their debt to society or they haven't served enough time. Either way it suggests that the debt of criminality isn't something you're allowed to pay off and settle.
Here in the States, depending on where you live, you may not be able to vote even after release from prison. The laws vary, but in some places if you've been convicted of a felony you have to petition the Governor personally to regain the right. Other states make you wait several (usually 7 or 15+) years after release and then apply to get the right to vote restored, and a few states give it back immediately (either automatically or after you apply).
Just thought I'd say, Jeremy Corbyn voted against the blanket ban in the last parliamentary debate on this issue back in 2010. Now he's Labour Leader you never know these issues could gain more traction.
The EU would sh*t it's britches if they realized the way the US often treats it's prisoners. Voting laws are controlled by the states, and in some states (I believe a lot), being sent to prison PERMANENTLY prevents you from voting. The idea of persons in prison being allowed to vote is so foreign to me, I don't know how to process it. It took me a few minutes to realize you weren't talking about ex-cons.
12:39 - that's kind of the point of the Turing Test - it's a more of a pragmatic test than philosophical one. If a machine intelligence presents in such a way that it cannot be distinguished from a human, then it must be considered to be human or human-equivalent - whether or not it was in fact thinking in the same way that we do.
In Croatia prisoner votes are among the first to be counted and they have been used by news programs as, apparently, quite accurate predictors of the overall result
This might be because I'm Belgian and voting is compulsory here, but I dont see voting as a right or a privilege, but more as a duty to society. A quick google tells me that prisoners here dont lose their right to vote, but they do lose access to the main way voting is done here, and voting by mail is not a thing here (n mabe it should be), their only option is having someone else cast their vote for them, but that too is tricky. Tbh, I find it kind of weird that many prisoners are essentially not able to vote here, youd think that if the government makes something mandatory theyd at least provide ways to do it...
In much of the US prisoners can't vote even after they have served their time. In Florida there was a vote that allowed them to but the Republican governor effectively blocked it by adding a requirement that the person pay all fees first even ones that were waived.
Speaking in the US, I know more than a few laws that are based off of emotions and hardly based on logic. It just happens, and I'm growing to accept that this has been the case and will continue to be the case for quite some time. I think prisoners should vote. But I also think all drugs should be decriminalized, and that we should feel the same way about sexuality in media as we do violence in media, that is, not really minding it too much, and so on. I'm not going to get anywhere near what _I_ want, and I don't want to become a social outcast from my friends, family, and co-workers by spouting off all my crazy ideas. I'll speak with my vote, but at least _I'm_ not the kind of person to fight openly for social change.
I'm 55% leaning towards denying prisoners the right to vote. My thought on the matter is, at the very least subtly, different to those presented here. If you break the law, you should not, during the time of your penance, be able to make law. Furthermore, and in the same vein, it would not be reasonable for us to say that a prisoner be able to become an MP, would it? Yet that style of participation in government is a right afforded to every other adult member of society. If we can deny that right, why not voting rights? Then we come to other issues. If we cannot take voting rights, how are we justified in taking away the right to property, freedom of organisation, travel, work, speech, and so on. We massively restrict the rights of prisoners, something which --- and I don't mean to accuse here --- you just swept away with effectively, "Well, duh, we have to." How is this justified? Clearly there is a two-level system of rights. The first level can never be taken away: a right to the freedom from torture, slavery, tyranny, etc., and rights to shelter, food, water, and so on. The second level is that which is necessary for commodious living, but not necessary for fair existence: free movement, access to one's property (home, cars, bank accounts, whathaveyou), so on and so on, until we get to the question on the table --- voting rights. Voting rights are clearly in the second set since they are necessary for a free person to live commodiously and equitably within a fair --- which is to say, liberal --- society, but not for mere existence. One can live without voting rights, but one cannot live well; meanwhile, one can neither live nor live well when subjected to slavery or torture. (Here, of course, "live" is synonymous with "live with dignity/respect/basic moral value"; "live well" is synonymous with "live with dignity and freedoms that allow for {what used to be called in the Ancient world} spiritual development, ie., culture of the 'soul'.") But let's be clear that denying people the right to vote once they have left prison is indeed a constitutional violation for all properly applied liberal societies, in my opinion. Once someone has served their time, that's it. Beyond certain measures (house arrest, sex offenders register, etc.) which are just different forms of a sentence, one cannot be denied these rights once out of prison/free from the punishment for their crime. That's my opinion at least. This is coming from a person that firmly and unwaveringly believes in the rule of law and individual rights. I think it boils down to the fact that, when someone is convicted of a crime, they do not cease to be a part of society, they merely become part of a politically distinct subsection of the population, similar (though not the same as) how children are seen: entitled to most rights, but not some --- for kids that's voting rights, for prisoners that's voting rights and a few others. I think this all makes sense, right? I don't think you've successfully proved that any of my argument is wrong based on the video alone, so I don't think you've definitively shown that denying voting rights to prisoners is wrong across the board (and of course, the appeal to the ECtHR wouldn't change my opinion unless they had a good argument of their own).
But voters don't make law: legislators do. Voters declare interest in policies of certain kinds and in most cases are the source of legitimacy for laws enforcing them (ideally anyway). And other rights like freedom of movement are restricted arguably for protection of the prisoners and of others, or for whatever good (like rehabilitation or whatever) you think imprisonment aims at, though some thinkers would indeed say that those aren't justified either and that prison isn't something we should do.
Thanks for replying to my hastily written shambles of a comment lol. I think voters do make law, in the sense that they are the cause for lawmakers to be given their jobs. We effectively vote for views, not for people. to be pedantic in this case is to be disingenuous as to the purpose of voting. Similarly, one might say "American voters do not vote for the president," and one would be correct -- they vote for electors, who then vote for the president; but again, this is disingenuous, as the electors rarely differ from the voters in their opinions. In much the same way, given PR and some better form of voting an FPTP, the purpose of voting would be to decide what laws get made, and then professionals go over the finer points, or something similar. At the base of it, one cannot deny that the purpose of voting is to allow people to affect lawmaking; from a systems point of view, the purpose of MPs is to represent the views of their constituents -- a function between the people and the law, and an extension (or centralisation) of the people's sovereignty. Thus, the people make law through voting; criminals have no respect for this law; for such a time as they are still criminals, they should not be afforded the right to affect the law which they so brazenly disrespect. As for the rest of your reply (again, thanks for replying), something being "arguable" does not make it correct, or even something that should be considered with the same weight as other views. Yes, one could argue that prisons shouldn't exist, but I could also argue that we should bring back the death penalty; regardless, neither of these positions are any good With regards to retributivism vs rehabilitationism ... you like to say a lot in your videos that when assessing the veracity of an analysis, we should look at whether it helps us in understanding what we mean when we say what we do, which I think is correct. In this way, retributivism definitely describes, at least in part, the idea of sentencing criminals: we describe murders receiving 20 years or what have you as "a punishment for the crime", and other such phrases. No less, I don't think the two theories are mutually exclusive: one can be punished and in the process of reformation at the same time. It is a false dichotomy. Finally, I'd just like to restate my argument. People are given the right to partake in government and lawmaking (which isn't a weakening of my position, just a clarification); criminals, once they have gone through the process of a fair trial with access to legal help and whathaveyou, have been proved beyond reasonable doubt to have committed a crime; he who commits a crime shows disrespect to the law, at least in part (note: show disrespect to the law as it stands by not obeying it, I am not arguing that law-abiding anarchists or dissenters should be imprisoned); those who do not respect the law, for such a time as is befitting for the amount of disrespect shown to the law, should not be afforded the right to partake in government and lawmaking, through voting or becoming an MP. Restating it in this way, with the clarifications and extra subtlety, I think strengthens this argument. I'm like, 65% in favour of denying prisoners the right to vote right now.
That's fair enough. Thanks for replying anyway. I love your videos, and I'm really happy you managed to get to drama school. Keep up the good work! :) I wish I could give more on Patreon, but I'm also a poor student lol, but you make my degree a lot more understandable! Thanks
I have read your argument completely, and you bring up a good point, and there's not much I can poke holes in, thank you for being a competent commenter. I find this to be very rare. I watched this video on a channel called Beyond Science, and this guy said "All drugs are addictive and cause death." I honestly thought this was a joke, but it was completely serious and, I destroyed his argument because it was someone who spent too much time watching Law & Order. Anyway, though criminals having an influence on the law and politics is a frightening prospect, it doesn't have a negative impact on Society as a whole, using the video as evidence. They show different political views as the general public, but it's not like they want The Joker to be President of the United States, and people who have been on the wrong end of the law should know what's wrong about the system, therefore, they should, emphasis on *should,* be able to more accurately know enough about the current state of the legal system to be able to accurately assess which candidate would be best for whatever office/role of authority they are voting for. Now, maybe not a serial rapist who is a psychopath, okay, maybe he shouldn't even have the power to tip the scales by .00001% because that could be the vote that puts a psychopath (Someone who shows no remorse or regret for their actions) in the Presidential Office, but a pickpocket who is imprisoned during the elections. C'mon. I mean, c'mon. Really? That seems a bit much. Also, if it helps rehabilitation, that is a win, win! The perpetrator gets out quicker and is more stable, therefore more likely to get a job and play a big role in society, and people are safe. I'd really like to read a response to my response, and great argument. Just a really great argument, I'd like to give you a thumbs up for that.
Regarding the disproportionate punishment argument, I think in some US states they "get around it" by saying no _former_ prisoner of certain crimes is ever allowed to vote in the future, either. At least that's what I heard, could someone please confirm this? ...Which is... yeah. Not the best policy.
Very good, I never thought I about it and I'm from Portugal. I just learned that even who is from outside many times the rules and bureaucracies lead to invalidation of their votes.
I'm not sure what kind but I think there should be an exam of some sort for people who want to vote in order to determine whether they should be eligible to vote.
"If you break the law, you deserve to lose your rights." "Background checks for people buying guns?" "That's unconstitutional and an invasion of privacy."
You have convinced me to some extent. I still think that people who commit corruption based crimes or defraud public trusts should not be allowed to vote during their sentence. As based on their crimes they have proven they incapable of being a able to make decisions with the best interest of general society in mind.
My uneasy rebutals to all of Easton's points: She says it's not a good punishment if it's inconsistently applied. But if we simply think that it is good to punish criminals, then the fact that we can't punish some of them (since they're not in prison during an election), is the regretable part, not the fact that we do punish when possible. This criticism would, for example, also rule out monetary punishment (since some people don't have money), or incarceration (since some people are already in prison).
+Elliott Collins The "disproportionate" claim also seems to rest on an unnecessarily restrictive version of the retributivist theory. Where is it written that severity of punishment has to be *linear* in the severity of the crime? There's always some ratio of punishment severity over crime severity, and while it probably shouldn't be *wildly* disproportionate, to argue that that ratio should be the same for every crime is an assumption being imposed on the retributivist here. Other punishments that fit that description are Incarcertation itself, as well as forced labor, obligation to report to court hearings, and to inform neighbors of your crime. All are imposed in the same manner on any sentenced criminal.
+Elliott Collins Finally, in America, there is at least some proportionality between ones crime and revocation voting rights, because felons lose the right permanently.
I am one of those people who have never really had a strong opinion on this, and that is one reason I love this channel. It makes me consider things that I might otherwise take for granted, or just assume are 'correct' without knowing why - and I'd prefer to have good reasons for the things I believe. However, the way I've always seen it is that these people (residents or citizens) have agreed to the social contract of the society in which they live. Voting is part of that cultural/societal interaction to which free-citizens have a right. But, by breaking the law, convicted criminals have demonstrated that they are unable or unwilling to live by this social contract. So, the right to "interact" (socially and governmentally) is temporarily restricted while they are incarcerated. That said, there are some good counter points in this video - one of the strongest for me, being an American, is the possibility of racial-skewing. I would like to see us (the US) start with complete prison reform, a rethink from the ground-up. Our current "system" is clearly broken and unhealthy, for both the prisoners and society, and voting should certainly be part of that discussion. Thanks, keep up the good work!
We have this right in my country, Switzerland, and as you probably know, we made murder and rape legal back in 2007 and our parliament is now 45% ex-cons, because the prisoners vote pro-criminality (duh) and that’s why we shouldn’t grant them this basic human right.
I was curious and in Ireland at least the prisoner postal votes in the constituency where they usually live. At first I wondered if all their votes go towards the constituency the prison is in.
I've always felt that prisoners should definitely keep their right to vote. They are in jail, because they violated laws. These people may not agree with those laws, and voting is the only way a citizen can effect change in the laws. Many people are in jail for drug related crimes, and laws for drug prohibition, might be the type of laws, these prisoners would like to see changed. Their lives are directly impacted by these laws, so in my mind, these people should have the opportunity to change the laws.
Really useful and thought provoking video. Just thought I'd point out however at 8:05 you raised the counter argument about obeying the European Union. The European Court of Human Rights is totally separate from the European Union and so it has nothing to do with taking instruction from Europe, especially as the European Convention on Human Rights was drafted by the United Kingdom in the first place!- common mistake that people make!
As a European law student, I would like to make a few correcting remarks. 1) The European Convention of Human Rights is separate from the European Union. It operates under the Council of Europe which currently consists of 47 Member States. The EU might have something to say in relation to European Parliament elections but elections in the UK are outside of the scope of EU's powers. Those two institutions are NOT the same. 2) Even though the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that a blanket ban is in violation of the Convention, it is not that simple. Prisoners have the right to vote but that right is not absolute. A blanket ban is a violation; not itself the act of preventing prisoners from voting. Prisoners can be prevented from voting as long as it is in pursuit of a legitimate aim and the measure is proportionate considering the aim. The margin of appreciation that is left to the states is in this case quite wide, not narrow. 3) Legally, not many rights are absolute, and neither is the right to vote. However, I strongly agree that preventing prisoners from voting is shameful and this is something that should be changed.
Ireland has seen a huge spike in crimes in the last 4 years and due to the early 2023 year rates it is bound to be record year in criminal activities. So there might be a correlation to giving the right to vote to criminals 7 years ago
Wow. Not only is the video interesting, but the impressions are on point as well. I would like to hear more about the consequentialism / retributivism debate. I've long held the belief that sentencing should be about (in some abstract sense) giving criminals an experience that shapes their future behavior. I've heard some arguments in defense of consequentialism, but I've not explored the retributivism side of the argument.
What about those who don't get caught? Since most people break laws in some form or another, shouldn't only those who can prove total obedience be allowed to vote?
Ok, so the idea usually cited is that prisons are meant to rehabilitate criminals. In the US (which imprisons the greatest number of people in the world), it is basically impossible to get a job, even a minimum wage job at a fast food joint, if you have a criminal record. The same goes for securing housing, as most landlords will do a background check or at least credit check. Obviously employers have a right to know if their prospective employees have a criminal history, but most of the time there is no opportunity for the formerly incarcerated person to tell their side of the story, demonstrate how they've changed, or even explain what they were imprisoned for. That's without even touching on all of the unjust mandatory minimum sentencing and disproportionate imprisonment of people of color. But even if you think that everyone who goes to jail is guilty, then how can you justify ruining the rest of the life as a citizen when the goal is supposedly to improve society?
I personally really like Norway's prisoner philosophy: The punishment to the crime is a restriction to your freedom. You are not free to leave. You are not free to visit your friends and family at any time you wish. That is your punishment. Anything that goes beyond that is not actually part of your punishment. This philosophy and the prison design that arose from it has lead to some of the most humane and reform-successful prisons to date. Some of the lowest reincarceration rates in the world. And while building prisons like that is expensive (they often end up looking pretty much like upper middle tier hotels), I think the end result is actually cheaper? Simply due to vastly smaller and less problematic prison population and, accordingly, less staff. Of course all of this is only tangential to whether people in prisons get to vote. However, I almost feel like that's a no-brainer question: They obviously should get to, d'uh! As you said, the case against is extremely weak. Basically just fear-driven pseudomoralistic nonsense. The case for can come in many forms. For example, Utilitarians might say it minimizes suffering. Libertarians (am I using this term right? I hope I am) might say it's simply more cost effective. I'm sure there are many very different positions that would end up roughly at this conclusion.
Kram1032 the whole idea that people shouldn’t be allowed to vote is nearly religious: breaking the law means you are "evil" and "evil people" shouldn’t be allowed to vote because. A. They don’t deserve it (harsh punishment for the majority of people living in prison who didn’t do the most horrible crimes like rape, torture or murder, even though IMO nobody should be punished like this anyway) Or B. They can’t be trusted with voting because the will vote for "evil" things (but what are they gonna do? Try to make rape legal?)
Yeah it's kinda absurd. Like, even *if* "criminals are trying to push a criminal agenda", which, there is no evidence for that what so ever, what is the implication there? Are you seriously worried that a majority, or even a significant minority, is criminal? If that's true then it sounds like something bigger is amiss in your place.
@@Kram1032 It's more than 2 millions in the US (698 per 100'000 residents). Most european countries are around or under 100/100'000 and certainly not over 200/100'000. So I guess the US should be worried...about how fucked up their society must be if they put almost seven times more people in jail than any other western country. Putting a great amount of people in jail while stripping them of the right to act politically against the system imprisonning them doesn't quite sound like "land of the free" to me. What's more frustrating about it is the unwillingness of american politicians to recognize that other countries have found better solutions than them: "-Nordic countries have less criminals because prisons actually helps them reintegrate society instead of locking them away for 20 years for minor things and treating them like shit even after they did their time" -but criminals need to be harshly punished and treated like shit to understand what they did was wrong!!!! -actually no they don't, you can reintegrate criminals way easier if you continue to treat them like citizens with rights, here are the numbers that pro.. -YES THEY DO!!! Your numbers are wrong and my instinct is right"
As a side note, i notice you only refer to consequentialism and retributivism as approaches to addressing crime. I'm not sure, but it seems like restorative justice programs, which i strongly favor in all cases that reasonably allow it, doesn't really fit tidily into either category. Nonetheless, i'd expect advocates of restorative justice to also support voting rights for prisoners, as the denial of voting rights does little to address past damage done to the community and, as you say, may guide transgressors to re-engage and heal their relationship with the community.
This is so cool to see. This one stands out to me, though you had previous political topics, as where your role as advocate significantly increased relative to your role as educator
In my opinion, the biggest issue with taking away prisoners' right to vote is that it makes it very easy for people in power to supress the voices of people they do not agree with. If you don't want gay people to vote, criminalise homosexualty and boom, suddenly a bunch of gay people are in prison and can't vote to change that law. And it's like you said too, if the justice system is unjust that means certain groups of people are already having more of their votes taken away.
I like how it is done in my native Germany. Prisoners have generally ther right to vote, except their crime was against the state or the government directly to disturb the democratic order.
Retributive justice is just wrong. Most people disavow personal revenge by saying, "two wrongs don't make a right." How can that be justified on a societal scale? The moral arguments that work are consequentialist. We need to rehabilitate offenders and remove the truly dangerous ones from society so that they don't hurt others in the future. However, the system we have here in the U.S. is very biased toward retribution. We have a lot of work to do.
Bernie Sanders recently voiced support for the voting rights of prisoners, which got me looking into it and apparently they can in my country (Denmark), so that's cool. It kind of concerns me how dehumanised prisoners are in a lot of places, that can't be helpful to rehabilitation at all.
I don't have a problem with taking the right to vote away from prisoners, because prisoners would only vote for politicians who wanted to serve the interests of prisoners. This seems selfish on the part of the prisoners, but can you blame them for not thinking about others. Using this same logic, why don't we take the right to vote away from the retiree population (65 years old, plus). They exhibit the same voting behavior as the prisoners, voting exclusively for politicians that serve the interests of the elderly, at the expense of the younger generations.
Regarding the stoicism discussion: the Roman (tyrannical and virtually undefeatable militaristic) Empire required stoicism to come to terms with living under it. As time went on, I wonder if larger and larger portions of the population were required to become stoics just to be able to survive it -- and if so, at what point did so much restriction of emotion and feeling of powerlessness contribute to that empire's fall?
"but you still gotta answer why those crimes cause you to lose your right to vote." Well, it's not like we have a good scientific formula which tells us why one punishment for X crime is 2-5 years and the other for Y crime is 3-7 years in the first place. It'll always be a little bit arbitrary.
Thank you for bringing this issue to the audiences attention. I did not give this issue much thought before. Now, thanks to you, I have an informed opinion. I support the vote for prisoners.
Wow, the beginnng of this video totally blown my mind - I didn't know that so many countries have that kind of approach to prisoners. I'm from Poland, here prisoners can vote (most of them), nobody argues with that, we take it for granted. It's always surprising when you realise that something completely normal in your country, is forbidden in others. It work both ways of course :D (for example case of abortion in Poland).
The question, to me, is not "do they have a right" but "is it better". Prisoners voting have a few issues: 1) the prison influences them, can adjust their vote easily. 2) they have a vested interest in making illegal things legal, prison terms shorter, and so on. 3) prisoners are the least educated, least good portion of society. 4) prisoners are densely packed into prisons, and given a local vote, can overwhelm native populations of people. However, they have benefits 1) the state can never imprison a group of people to silence them, that group of people, when put out of the eye of society, still have a voice to stand against the wrongs they believe are right. Overall, I think the best course of action is to have some "pseudo-state" where prisoners are given a voice in government, as the territories are given a voice. Someone who can speak for the prisoners, but cannot force a vote, election, and so on. Kind of as how territories have a role in congress. This way you get the ability for those groups to speak, to have their will heard, but do not allow them to change the laws to make themselves less punished, and prevents a large, uneducated, non-participatory group to change laws.
Another problem with not allowing prisoners to vote is that a group of people could be punished by a law that was unjust/inequitable and would not be able to have a voice to change it. I suppose this may apply less in the western world, but it may turn into an issue with developing nations.
USA has had _this very system_ continuously for decades, and still does today. Not so sure about UK, but it does seem like there are problems regarding justice system and minorities there. Also, the near-uniformly adopted in the West (neo)liberalism gleefully criminalises being poor - you can, for example, go to prison for not being able able to pay your debts. So yes, it definitely does apply in the western world, not just "the developing nations".
Also, (talking about a revolution) I was wonderin' if you'd like to do a video (or a serie of videos) about anarchism and the different streams of Anarchism? I'd really love to see Proudhon discussed :)
I think the arguments about being arbitrary don't hold up. What if some prisoners are homeless and they want to be in prison for the free accommodation? Does that mean there's no point in locking them up for murder? No. It's kind of like a prisoner's right too healthcare (depending on the country you're in). If a prisoner is completely healthy, is there no point in giving that right to healthcare? Just because there are no elections, that doesn't mean revoking that right is pointless.
What about the fact that prisoners are isolated in a way from the outside world, isn't it harder for them to keep up with the news so they could make an informed decision about the vote?
+Malek Badareen Lets be honest here. How many people in the UK honestly make an informed decision about their vote. I had one friend vote for labour because he liked red and another vote UKIP because he didn't like the Indian man at the local shop.
I know this is 4 years old, but this sounds like an arguement for keeping prisoners informed. We should feel obligated to do so anyway considering the common goal of potentially reforming prisoners and then returning them to society. Isolation from information is almost definitely a factor for ability to reenter society. I'd imagine, but do not yet know the statistics, that informed ex-convicts have a much greater chance of rejoining society and are less likely to reoffend. In addition, I think ability to learn or stay informed is something I consider a right, and therefore something being wrongfully taken away in those situations. If we are assuming that voting is a human right as Olly states it, ability to remain informed would seem to be paramount to providing that right. All of this of course presupposing that we should lock people away that we expect to rejoin society.
please do a video on cultural appropriation! I've had trouble with the idea myself but I realized the question of racial centrality and power structures associated with the "ownership" of something as varying, changing, and decentralized as culture made this topic much less straightforward and made begin to consider what non-individualizing and maybe not thoroughly justified aspects might come with a stance against cultural appropriation. this article is what made me start to rethink a little; please consider! www.newstatesman.com/culture/art-design/2015/10/defence-cultural-appropriation
I'm honestly not sure where I stand on this particular issue (I can see the arguments for prisoner voting and the arguments against prisoner voting) but anything that mocks politicians, particularly David Cameron, is fine by my books.
Hey Olly! How are you? First, great vídeo and your channel is amazing. I do not know how to describe how genius this channel is. I usually don't comment in videos. But this time I wanted to share my opinion with you. My english is not so good because i'm brazilian and I haven't learned english completely, so sorry if there are some errors in my commentary. Well, let's start... I see prisoners voting a bit chaotic. Because if a citizen elects a congressman1 who created a new law, and another citizen breaks this new law and become a prisoner, and he elects a congressman2. What will obligate people to follow the laws of congressman2? Why would someone want to follow laws of the representative of someone who has broken the law? I see a person breaking the law like breaking democracy, why someone who has broken democracy can have the right to exert democracy? But, of course is not for always. Someone who has received his punishment for breaking the law can vote. Thanks for the attention and see you later! Gabriel
Daoism as I understand it is a bit like the inverse of Calvinism. Where Calvinism says the Good Life is one achieved through hard work and toil, Daoism says that the Good Life is one that is withdrawn and contemplative. I remember reading an example of what this might look like, which imagines someone being so terrified of their shadow that they spend their life trying to run away (quite literally) from it. If they kept doing that, they'd eventually die of exhaustion, but if they stopped and went to sit and rest under the shade of a tree, their shadow would melt away, their fear would subside and their problem would be solved not by action but indeed inaction. Similar to Stoicism it says that rather than working yourself up into anxiety and a frenzy, it is better to withdraw emotionally and physically, not get passionately involved, and because of that you're life will be better for the fact that you'll be able just to "go with the flow" and won't be constantly, tiringly fighting against overwhelmingly more powerful forces
Just like to point out an aside I saw. There was a mention around the 5:30 mark that the voting is disproportionate and arbitrary. But if we look at probabilities, people with heavier crimes will theoretically spend longer time in prison. And the expected number of elections you are denied from scales linearly with time spent in prison. As such, it is neither disproportionate nor arbitrary if we're taking a probabilistic/time-averaged case.
To take it the extreme route, you could make up some rule that imprisons everyone that disagrees with you and if prisoners can't vote, you would be in power forever...
So what about a case like Matthew Lyon's where he was convicted and imprisoned for violating laws that he argued violated the US Constitution, but the courts disagreed, and he ran and won public office? The US allegedly has a lot of such laws that the Supreme Court has upheld, such as drug prohibition via the interstate commerce clause even for in-state trade. Should prisoners be denied any political rights given this lawless (ie anything goes despite the Constitution and the understanding that the ratifiers had of it) political system? Who would decide what acts bar one from the political process. There could be some obvious ones enumerated in a Constitutional amendment, such as murder. But for a judge, legislative act, or federal code to decide, could be ripe for political abuse.
The European Court of Human Rights is NOT an EU body! Lots of people mix this up, but the ECHR is a body that pronounces judgement on signatories of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is not related to the EU. The ECHR has jurisdiction in 47 states, only 28 of which are members of the EU.
You can find more on it on wikipedia, but unfortunately I couldn't get the link to copy-paste. Politicians also like to say or imply that the ECHR is an EU body all the time, which is why I think it's important to point out the difference, and that e.g. the UK leaving the EU wouldn't make one iota of difference regarding the ECHR's jurisdiction. Other than triggering one of my pet peeves, great video as always :).
Prisoners are human beings. If they have interfered with others human rights, it makes sense to remove them from community for awhile, but to take away the prisoner's human right only makes two wrongs. I am happy to live in one of the two US states, Vermont, that allows felons to vote. Maine is the other US state.
Another reason to allow prisoners to vote is that denying them the right opens the door to tyranny. By passing laws that disproportionately imprison their opponents, they can ensure that they stay in power. It incentivises them to pass unjust laws that target their opponents.
it took me way too long to realize that this was a discussion of people currently in prison voting and not about disenfranchising people convicted of felonies.... i oppose disenfranchisement and now i believe that prisoners should be allowed to vote.
+Bourbon The Huckster Ahahhaham ehem I doubt the efficacy of that. Not only would it be pointless, long, complex, us-pop converted... it has never worked to take Hegel apart and the trials try to reinstate him with other terms. He's a bit special in that he can't be shortcutted through. You want Hegel, read him.
The problem I have here is that the counter argument confuses two positions. The position 'the state can deprive those convicted of certain offences of the right to vote' and 'the state should deprive those of certain offences of the right to vote'. The argument often being countered by the argument critiqued in this video is that the state cannot deprive prisoners of the right to vote, that this right cannot be taken away at all, similar to the arguments against the death penalty. Arguments against the latter position here are ineffective. I'm against the death penalty, I'm against depriving prisoners of the right to vote. These punishments are on the table for me, I'm willing to let the state do them in principle, there just aren't any circumstances where they are effective (and in the former case inexpensive). If you find a circumstance where they are effective I'm interested in hearing it and I'm willing to support the state using them, but from the research I've read there just aren't any.
Excellent video for justifiably dismissing the viewpoint of why it is the way it is, but you could have taken an offensive approach instead of a defensive approach. I won't go into detail about where and why this argument works, but as an example: a law is made through whatever available channel and it is illegal to be male; as long as half of women want this law to stay in effect, it will because if men in prison couldn't vote, it will never go away. We would regard this as a human rights violation, but the definition of human rights is something that is established by society in the first place so there surely must be many laws that could be considered human rights violations. I believe one such human right is to consume what you desire so long as you still receive the consequences of your actions.
In Germany it's quite complicated. You can be denied your active vote only for certain crimes but no longer than for 5 years. These mostly include political crimes like preparation of a war of aggression, high treason, treason, voter fraud, or slander against certain governmental institutions. But unless it's specifically stated in our criminal law you can't lose your right to cast a vote for any election. And this specific paragraph has only been used twice in the last 23 years. If you are sentenced to prison for at least 1 year, you are denied your passive vote for exactly 5 years though. This has been the case for the entire history of the Bundesrepublik. And we don't sink into chaos at any rate. But according to an inquiry by a member of parliament, there seem to be some practical obstacles for prisoners to pursue their vote, like applying for a request for a ballot paper. While prisoners have the right to request a ballot paper for absentee vote, it turns out that a lot of prisoners don't take this option. Wether that is caused by impeding their right to vote by the communes or federal states that run the prison or the prisons themselves or if they just don't participate is not clear. Either way the turnout is very low in the prison population.
I used to work for Department of Corrections (2 years in a facility, 1 year outside of it). My main job was ensuring the reduction of recidivism (reoffending) by inmates. Voting has been a crucial concern to them, because who better to voice and vote for the issues that affect them the most than the ones living in the system? As you said, at least in the US, the rate of imprisonment is disproportionately larger for people of color than our white citizens. I see it as no more than a way to continue keeping people of color out of the voting booth and empowering those already with power (namely Republicans). People don't seem too inclined to allow rehabilitation and are of the retributive mindset when it comes to criminal punishment. It still doesn't address how we reduce the rate of crime and keep people out of the prison system. A system that is also "for profit" with private prisons set up to fill beds and are financially penalized if they don't keep their "numbers" up for incarceration. Yay capitalism :/
