Would prisoners use their votes?

Some prisoners could gain the right to vote for the first time. But would inmates actually fill in their ballot papers?

They are a section of the electorate few politicians are likely to canvass – but if moves to enfranchise them succeed, many residents of the UK’s jails would gain a say in picking the nation’s MPs.

The proposal was put forward after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that banning a convicted killer from the polls had breached his right to participate in the democratic process.

To comply with the ruling it has been suggested that only those serving less than a year in UK prisons will gain the vote, and Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has insisted the move would be conceding to inmates “a right that they probably wouldn’t bother to exercise”. But is he correct?

Here, two ex-convicts with very different views of the plans describe what they think prisoners would do with their new-found democratic power.

The move to introduce votes for prisoners is hardly one that is likely to win much popular support and the reaction from politicians has ranged from grudging acceptance to outright hostility. Both the cabinet and shadow cabinet have been told to abstain when the bill comes before parliament and the prime minister’s spokeswoman has said the government wants to do “as little as possible” to comply with the court ruling.

But up until now, the UK’s resistance to granting prisoners the vote sets it apart from countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland who have no such restrictions.

Some 13 European countries, however, have rules for disqualifying some prisoners depending on the crime committed or the length of the sentence.

Votes for prisoners

Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland: no form of electoral ban for imprisoned offendersItaly, Malta and Poland: ban for those deemed to have committed serious crimesGermany: prisoners encouraged to vote, apart from those whose crimes undermine “democratic order”Greece: permanent voting ban for anyone sentenced to lifeRussia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Luxembourg and Romania: outright ban for all inmatesQ&A: UK prisoners’ right to vote

Perhaps the most useful comparison, however, is offered by the Republic of Ireland, which gave inmates of its jails the right to participate in elections for the first time in 2006.

With a general election looming in the Republic, just 191 out of a prison population of 4,500 are currently on the electoral register, according to the Irish Prison Service – barely 4% of all those currently behind bars.

Given that those guilty of crimes have, by definition, transgressed the norms of society, it would not be altogether surprising if they were less inclined than the rest of the population to take part in a civic duty such as voting.

Moreover, they are disproportionately likely to come from the sort of chaotic backgrounds that generally preclude political engagement. A 2010 report by the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange suggested that as many as 35% of England and Wales’s prison population were regular drug users.

For these reasons, former prison governor and warder Roger Outram is doubtful that more than a handful of British inmates would actually bother to participate.

“They’re going to be more concerned with who their wife is spending time with on the outside or where they’ll get their next fix,” he says.

“I can honestly say that in 32 years in the Prison Service I never had a conversation with an inmate about elections.”

Of course, this argument presupposes that convicts who were apolitical would remain so.

Lord Ramsbotham, a former chief inspector of prisons in England and Wales and an advocate of the government’s reform, anticipates that many prisoners would be attracted to casting a vote.

“I imagine if this comes in a lot of them will vote for the first time because it’s a novelty – anything that’s new or a break from the routine they’ll try,” he says.

“In the long-term, though, they should be educated about what the party manifestoes actually mean for their life chances when they come out. At the end of the day, the job of prison is to protect the public and reduce the risk of reoffending, and all members of the public should be asking questions of their MPs if that isn’t happening.”

Members of the public may disagree on whether giving the vote to prisoners is a good idea. But any reforms should cast light on the question of whether voting makes good citizens, or being good citizens makes voters.



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