UK prisoners to get the vote

An MEP for the anti-EU UK Independence Party once told me voting was a privilege extended to good citizens, and that prisoners must lose that privilege. He also called the European Court of Human Rights "brand new", while pointing out that Britain's constitutional democracy was over 600 years old. The UK was right, he said, in banning prisoners from voting, and the European court was wrong when it said it must be allowed.

Well, this week the UK government gave that MEP more ammunition by deciding that the European Court of Human Rights was right when it ruled - more than five years ago - that the UK's ban on prisoners' votes was in breach of EU law.

But there are many here who agree with the MEP. There is a sizeable minority who feel prisoners get treated better than many of the country's poorer, law-abiding citizens. A recent tabloid headline illustrates the point: "Minister says inmates should have choice of FIVE dishes for dinner". I mean - heaven forbid prisoners get a choice between meatballs and fish.

UK politicians have played politics with crime and punishment for so long that the prison population - a record 85,000 people this year - in many people's eyes have turned into sub-humans not worthy of human rights.

Crime and punishment

Take John Hirst. He killed his landlady with an axe and spent 25 years in jail. Why should he be allowed to vote while on the inside? Well he clearly thought he should, and when he got out he was a self-taught legal expert and took the government to court for failing to allow prisoners the vote. He won. It was his victory nearly six years ago which has now finally forced the British government to fall into line with most other European countries and allow prisoners to vote.

John Hirst's crime was horrible, and he was rightly sent to jail for it. But, as he pointed out to me when I met him earlier this year, his punishment was to be locked up - nothing more, nothing less. You could argue till you're blue in the face about the morality of allowing someone who has deprived another person of their very life to have a say in how society is run. But as long as the letter of the law says that is irrelevant, it is irrelevant.

When you live in a democracy with an independent judiciary, you're not going to like everything that comes from it. Some people object to paying tax. Some want to smoke marijuana. But you do or you don't, because it's the law. People in prison don't lose all their rights as human beings, the law doesn't allow it. What they lose is their freedom.

Those close to the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "absolutely horrified" by the idea of changing the law to allow prisoners the vote. Whether this is his personal opinion I do not know, but it's not a surprising thing to come from any politician here.

Criminals in the UK are not vote winners. Early on in his Labour party leadership, Tony Blair coined the phrase "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." Many prisoner interest groups now point out the causes of crime are often to be found in the alienation prisoners feel when they are denied basic rights such as being able to vote.

And who knows, with 85,000 people in jail, their vote could actually change a thing or two in the next election.

Author: Lars Bevanger

Editor: Neil King