I can't remember where I heard this originally, but I subscribe to the belief that you need to maintain the rights of criminals (like voting) to prevent tyranny.
Because if being labeled a criminal is enough to remove your rights, a corrupt government need only declare you one to take your rights away.
It used to be criminal in some parts of the USA for black and white people to intermarry, for example. Imagine losing your right to vote because of who you married.
It was Nelson Mandela:
A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.
To be honest I was shocked when I learned about this stripping of rights when you are imprisoned in the US. It is literally a tool of tyranny to lock people up in order to silence them.
there are states that have government employees who engage with prisoners and get them back into a eligible voter status. sadly not all of the USA believes in Democracy.
And that's precisely why I can't own a gun! I got framed for some bullshit and compelled to plea guilty probably because I'm vocal enough to end up on someone's list.
I'd guess it's probably from a curated Tumblr post which I'll paraphrase:
"Every criminal deserves rights"
"Except pedophiles, they're true scum"
"Yes, also pedophiles"
"You're a piece of shit"
"If pedophiles don't have rights, then everyone they want to not have rights will be declared a pedophile. For example, transgender people, queer people, liberals, and more have all been accused of preying on children"
"Oh."
Meanwhile pedophiles, knowing they're taboo, go to great lengths to be undetected and therefore never seek treatment and cause more harm.
I mean, it's true. That's how we still have slavery.
They are allowed to vote in civilized countries.
What do you think of France, UK, Italy and China? Because a prisoners right to vote can be removed in those countries as well.
Whatabout the UK, France, and China?
The UK whose flailing neo-fascist government just passed a law allowing it to deport refugees to Rwanda? Whose government is about to experience a historic blowout at the polls? Whose government destroyed their economy by pulling them out of the EU to try to regain the glory of the empire? That UK?
France with is neoliberal government? Macaron had spent so much time attacking workers and their rights to steal from the rich and give to the poor that he's almost handed the counry to the fascist brownshirts of Marine Le Pen?
This Italy? ?
And China?
I believe I said, "civilized countries".
In France we treat our prisoners like utter shit. If they way you treat the people you have power over is an important marker of civilization/democracy (and I believe it is), we fail this test real hard.
That being said, the tribunal has to specifically add to the prison sentence an exclusion from the right to vote. Iirc, about 25k prisoners (among the 75 or 80k total) have been deprived from the right to vote during their sentence.
Voting from prison in France is complicated,there are 3 options afaik:
The "can I please go out to vote" has to be approved by the warden, and dosen't happen much.
Delegating your vote isn't always easy either, prison has a tendancy to isolate people from their former close ones.
The correspondance vote is recent and seems like the best of the three. In 2017 (presidential electio ), less than 2% of imprisoned people had voted. In the 2022 presidential election, more than 20% of them did.
So far, voting logistics and the feeling that society doesn't want you has imo prevented far more people to vote than the "you can't vote for the next x years" addendum to sentences.
How is China civilized?
But if you let prisoners vote, you'd have to let the black ones vote too. And if you did that, there'd be next to no point in locking them up in the first place.
Nex you let women vote. You never know. Wait can women vote in america? How progressive
Totally reasonable and normal opinion. Possible in many countries
Bruh, the democracy in my country is a joke and even we have votes on prisons, what the hell? I thought this was standard.
I thought this was standard.
I think a lot of Americans don't share that belief.
The War On ~~Black People~~ Drugs created a generation of people entirely fine with the idea that not only do prisoners not have rights, they deserve to suffer out of prison as well.
I'll go one further, voting should be mandatory, punishable by a fine. The ballot should also have "none of the above" as an option.
Based. Spoiling the ballot is also common but in this case, a "none" box would make sense too
Literaly brasil (also for prisioners voting)
Australia too, I believe.
I agree with this, except that the punishment should be a short stay in jail, like maybe as long as a week for repeat offenses. That way it serves as a deterent and being wealthy won't make it worth it.
That's a bit much. Maybe a day of community service? 🤣
That would actually be a whole lot better, yeah.
I like the theory, but the practice is that you can force people to vote but not to be informed. People can just show up and push the button on the top.
It also means you gotta decide what to do when every election is won by "none of the above".
If one is a citizen of a country the right to vote should be the same as the right to breathe air.
The only qualification should be citizenship.
I can see the argument that when someone has committed a felony, you are taking them out of society as punishment. However once they’ve done their time and re-enter society, they have all the rights and privileges
Geez, connect this with the previous article on “pay to stay” debt, combine it with background searches for most jobs and debt …… how the heck does anyone come back from even a short sentence? If we’re making it unnecessarily difficult to reintegrate, how are we surprised when they fall?
how the heck does anyone come back from even a short sentence
That's the neat part: You don't.
It is incredibly difficult, bordering on impossible in some states.
You're correct, but I don't think this is an actually unpopular opinion, is it?
If you live in the United States, I think think answer to that depends on which state you live in.
Extremely unpopular Nationwide.
This isn't remotely unpopular among most people on the Fediverse I think.
Even if not while they are in prison, definitely once they have served their time. Absolute bullshit that you can never vote again once you've done time. (Federal crimes I mean)
It's a seriously bad idea to remove imprisoned people's rights even though point of prison is to remove rights to freedom of movement.
Why it's bad is because if you remove voting or communication rights then it opens the door to removing those rights with laws targeted at a minority. If a certain minority votes against you you can find a behavior in than group and make it illegal.
Black people in the US were especially targeted with this because of the War on Drugs as an example.
This is one of those posts that make me think "but that's already how it works" and then I remember "oh right, America".
In the UK prisoners cannot vote :(
In many countries they do vote!
Restriction of personal freedom and restriction of citizen rights are two different forms of punishments, ideally useful in different circumstances. But I guess thiie US applies them jointly?
The US loves to disenfranchise prisoners and felons, because the US has carefully throughout its history jiggered the system so that black people are significantly more likely to wind up as prisoners and felons. Felon disenfranchisement became suspiciously popular among US states immediately following the Civil War. No points for guessing why.
The situation has improved somewhat recently, with many states (although most of them not in the deep south...) relaxing laws and allowing previously convicted people to have their voting rights restored either automatically or via some process. To my knowledge, however, only two states allow incarcerated people to vote: Maine and Vermont.
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