Should Prisoners Be Allowed To Vote

Through different legal and criminological angles and perspectives, this book addresses the controversial question of whether prisoners should have the right to vote, as well as the optimal modalities for such a vote. By adopting a comparative approach to explore the legal systems of very different jurisdictions, such as the former Eastern Bloc, England, Ireland, the USA and France, the book reveals a recent trend in opening up the right to vote. It also looks at the recommendations of international and European institutions which, while relatively cautious, nevertheless support such progress. Examining the issue from a criminological viewpoint, the book investigates the role that prisoners’ votes could play in the social integration of these individuals into the community through political inclusion as citizens. Offering legal, theoretical and empirical bases, it blends a variety of perspectives to help readers establish an understanding of how prisoners' voting could contribute to improving their attachment to society and its values. Concise and direct, Prisoners' Vote will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of law, criminology, sociology, criminal justice, and political science. It should also appeal to practitioners working in the criminal justice system and policy makers reflecting on whether and how, to open the right to vote to prisoners.

"Should prisoners be allowed to vote?" This book is the first comprehensive evaluation of arguments on both sides of the debate.The author, Adam Godwin, gained a masters degree investigating this divisive political issue.This book examines the morality and usefulness of removing the voting rights of convicted prisoners in the U.K. It examines the arguments used to defend disenfranchisement and examines whether or not the practice is coherent with the traditional goals of our criminal justice system. It is centred around the British system, though arguments apply to any system of prisoner disenfranchisement.

"Mr. Manza and Mr. Uggen... wade into one of the most contested empirical debates in political science: How many (if any) recent American elections would have gone differently if all former felons had been allowed to vote?"--The Chronicle of Higher Education. Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen, who understand the vastness of the jailers' reach, follow the story out of the cell and into the voting booth. Locked Out examines how the disenfranchisement of felons shapes American democracyhardly a hypothetical matter in an age of split electorates and hanging chads.... Exacting and fair, their work should persuade even those who come to the subject skeptically that an injustice is at hand.The New York Review of Books. 5.4 million Americans--1 in every 40 voting age adultsare denied the right to participate in democratic elections because of a past or current felony conviction. In several American states, 1 in 4 black men cannot vote due to a felony conviction. In a country that prides itself on universal suffrage, how did the United States come to deny a voice to such a large percentage of its citizenry? What are the consequences of large-scale disenfranchisement--for election outcomes, for the reintegration of former offenders back into their communities, and for public policy more generally? Locked Out exposes one of the most important, yet little known, threats to the health of American democracy today. It reveals the centrality of racial factors in the origins of these laws, and their impact on politics today. Marshalling the first real empirical evidence on the issue to make a case for reform, the authors' path-breaking analysis will inform all future policy and political debates on the laws governing the political rights of criminals.

The book analyzes a contemporary policy question at the nexus of democracy, criminal justice, and constitutional citizenship.

Cet ouvrage couvre la période qui va de 1758 à nos jours.

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Law - Criminal process, Criminology, Law Enforcement, grade: 68%, 11 Punkte, , language: English, abstract: The aim of this essay is to work out and comment upon the treatment of prisoner voting rights by different instruments and the respective authorities on the basis of the parliamentary briefing paper dated from 11 February 2015 with particular consideration of the implementation of Llewellyn’s law jobs. First, this essay will present Llewellyn’s law job theory, then it will outline general provisions relating to voting rights. In the next section, the ECtHR’s and the UK government’s point of view on this debate will be critically examined, followed by an evaluation referring to the operation of the law jobs, especially emphasizing tensions regarding the resolution of trouble cases and the guiding of people’s conduct. Should prisoners in the United Kingdom be granted the right to vote? Several cases – Hirst v The United Kingdom (No 2) probably being the most popular example, where the convicted sought to challenge the current ban on prisoners’ voting – raised this issue in the recent years. A highly controversial debate was thereby initiated, especially against the backdrop of frequently arising tensions between the UK and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as to the nature and extent of how some substantive rights operate. Since the Human Rights Act 1998 incorporates the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into the law of the UK, the national courts are generally obliged to interpret national law in a manner compatible with the ECHR and to consider the decisions of the ECtHR .

How did a nation so famously associated with freedom become internationally identified with imprisonment? After the scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and in the midst of a dramatically escalating prison population, the question is particularly urgent. In this timely, provocative study, Caleb Smith argues that the dehumanization inherent in captivity has always been at the heart of American civil society. Exploring legal, political, and literary texts--including the works of Dickinson, Melville, and Emerson--Smith shows how alienation and self-reliance, social death and spiritual rebirth, torture and penitence came together in the prison, a scene for the portrayal of both gothic nightmares and romantic dreams. Demonstrating how the cellular soul has endured since the antebellum age, The Prison and the American Imagination offers a passionate and haunting critique of the very idea of solitude in American life.

"Through different legal and criminological angles and perspectives, this book addresses the controversial question of whether prisoners should have the right to vote, as well as the optimal modalities for such a vote. By adopting a comparative approach to explore the legal systems of very different jurisdictions, such as the former Eastern Bloc, England, Ireland, the USA and France, the book reveals a recent trend in opening up the right to vote. It also looks at the recommendations of international and European institutions which, while relatively cautious, nevertheless support such progress. Examining the issue from a criminological viewpoint, the book investigates the role that prisoners' votes could play in the social integration of these individuals into the community through political inclusion as citizens. Offering legal, theoretical and empirical bases, it blends a variety of perspectives to help readers establish an understanding of how prisoners' voting could contribute to improving their attachment to society and its values. Concise and direct, Prisoners' Vote will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of law, criminology, sociology, criminal justice, and political science. It should also appeal to practitioners working in the criminal justice system and policy makers reflecting on whether and how, to open the right to vote to prisoners"--