Prisoners Should Have the Right to Vote While Incarcerated - Essay Sample

Some vast voters affirm that prisoners who are convicted of crimes and are receiving sentencing in custody should not have the right to vote and should instead be punished, and voting rights are removed as they serve their time (Walsh). However, others are on the opposing opinions, citing that prisons ought to be about rehabilitation where opportunities are created for healing, personal transformation, and the absence of fundamental rights like democratic processes that may result in many prisoners' dysfunctional lives. The big question is, should prisoners have the right to vote while incarcerated. Prisoners should therefore be allowed to participate in their democratic rights since the rehabilitation of prisoners makes them responsible and productive members of the society and the absences of such fundamental rights in choosing whoever governs them dehumanizes the prisoners' dysfunctional and damaging their lives.

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The United States is a long way from embracing universal suffrage, save for Vermont and Maine that underscore the only states that allow convicts, including the incarcerated ones, to vote. Around 2000, Massachusetts had permitted everyone to vote, and currently, together with Washington, D.C, and other states, it bans people with convicts of a felony from voting while in prison (Liebelson). Other states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Alaska allow for some prisoners' voting depending on the felony with which they have been convicted. At times, they impose restrictions on voting for convicts, and worse still, permanently barring prisoners from voting. For such reasons, the lawmakers and officials from the states of New York and Illinois have recently backed efforts in making it easier to vote from jail (Liebelson). Most of our streets are filled with white and blue-collar criminals convicted o0f crimes or on bail waiting for trails. If individuals are convicted of crimes yet not given custodial sentences, they are typically allowed to vote. Why then should be treated differently from should the convicted criminal who is licked up?

By telling prisoners that they cannot vote is like making them go through some "civic death," which underscores the suspension of their customary rights as citizens. In contrast, behind bars, together with denying them their right to express their political opinions; hence the prisoners should not have their citizenship stripped as a punishment for their crimes (Brettschneider). Citizenship should never be a right that expires when one misbehaves. Supposes prisoners are to remain in prisons and retain their civic rights during the entire time of their sentencing, then they need to enjoy the most basic of their civil rights, which underlies the right to cast a ballot. Denying prisoners, the right to vote while incarcerated results in creating a class of people who, albeit subject to the U.S. laws, have no voice in the way they are governed (Brettschneider). Additionally, the ban on prisoners from voting while in prisons violates the prisoners' democratic rights. The government only needs to punish its citizens by revoking their liberty but not revoking their primary central right of citizenship, which is voting. Prisoners must, therefore, be recognized as electors and given opportunities to vote for them to be treated as democratic citizens (Marshall).

Similarly, allowing poisoners to vote and enter national political conversations while incarcerated may be one of the primary ways of eliminating the expensive and enduring problems of dangerous prison conditions. The fact that prisoners have minimal powers makes them vulnerable to victimization or, worse, being killed in the facilities that are poorly managed with no virtual political repercussions for those funding, designing, and administering such facilities. Since prisoners too are subject to the laws, allowing them to vote will end the incarcerated (Easton, et., al). Conversely, the investment of prisoners’ democratic rights is likely to resurrect them civilly. Participating in voting will equally affect prison policies for the better besides making the prisons more humane. Additionally, prisoners are neither more nor less rational than anyone else who is allowed to vote. If anything, the political system requires prisoners' input and their intimate experiences in an opaquing part of the state. Such inputs from the prisoners' votes may compel the lawmakers in taking a closer look at what happens in the prison institutions before the happenings in the prisons spiral into violence and unaccountable abuse (Easton, et., al).Similarly, ballot in prisons may help the prisoners maintain valuable links with their communities that may subsequently smoothen the transition upon their release.

Moreover, voting is a privilege and a fundamental right in any society that desires to serve people's interests. It would be unjust to take the franchise away, just because someone has committed a crime. It, therefore, follows that prisoners are voting. At the same time, incarcerated will allow for their entire organization while in prisons as they would vote for what is in their self-interest besides improving their participation in the electoral system. Furthermore, denying the prisoners the right to vote would most likely undermine respect of the rule of law since the citizens who cannot participate in the decision-making will most likely not recognize their authority. Allowing prisoners to vote would strengthen the prisoner's social ties besides being committed for the common good in the correctional facilities hence promoting participation, which is lawfully responsible in the civil society.

However, the opponents of allowing prisoners the right to vote to assert the same because being while incarcerated, barring them from voting, may not be a more significant burden, especially if the prisoner is unworthy to merit prison time first place. Prisoners should also not be allowed to vote since they do not have the community’s interest in mind (Lopez). They should also not be allowed to vote for their prosecutors since their opinion on crimes is never needed. That is a far-fetched claim that may be discredited by the notion that the political systems need the prisoners’ perspectives and experiences regarding the things in prison facilities before they escalate to worse. Besides, voting in prisons helps the prisoners maintain useful links with their communities, that would otherwise assist in their smooth transition upon their release.

Another argument purported by the opponents of denial of voting rights for prisoners incarcerated o]is the notion that the right to vote is as strong as anyone’s’. They support that point with an example of someone serving a sentence for over 150 years being allowed to decide on taxes and the government's spending through voting, which is way much awkward. Another example is a person serving life or murder. A prisoner losing the available rights to the law-abiding part as a citizen is part of a felon punishment (Lopez). Once convicted with such crimes like murder or life sentencing, the prisoner's ability to participate in a democracy should also be curtailed; hence they should never get to vote. And that denial of prisoners the right to vote is part of the punishment for their crimes. Thus, prisons should be meant to be a punishment, and once in prison, one loses freedom and democratic rights too during the sentencing, a notion that should never be changed. Besides, voting in prisons is likely to create tensions, dramas, and inmate to inmate violence during elections. However, the claims from the opposing views can be discredited through the fact that the prison administrators have the sole responsibilities of maintaining order and a safe prison environment. Hence an excuse for dramas, violence, and tensions in prisons should never be a reason for denying voting rights for prisoners incarcerated (Lopez). Also, the notion that prisoners should lose all their freedoms while incarcerated is unjustified and impractically unethical since every single person is entitled to their democratic rights regardless of how terrible the person is. They are already paying for their crimes while in prisons; hence their inherent American rights to participate in a democracy should never be disenfranchised.

In a nutshell, the U.S. needs to embrace universal prison suffrage whereby prisoners are allowed to exercise their democratic rights through voting since every person has the right to vote irrespective of their crimes. The people in prisons are already paying the price for their crimes by being in prisons; hence their inherent American rights to participate in a democracy should never be disenfranchised. Besides, the prisoners' perspectives are needed by the political system apart from the prisoners maintaining the links with their communities through voting. Despite the opposing view of a vote that the denial of the franchise in prisons is part of a punishment for their crimes besides avoiding dramas and violence in prisons during voting, prisoners should still vote while incarcerated. That is since voting is a privilege and a fundamental right in the society that should never be unjustly denied to anyone.

Works Cited

Brettschneider, Corey. "Why Prisoners Deserve the Right to Vote." Politico Magazine,22 June 2016. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/prisoners-convicts-felons-inmates-right-to-vote-enfranchise-criminal-justice-voting-rights-213979

Easton, Susan, Tim, Black, and Dhami, Mandeep. "Should prisoners be allowed tovote?" Criminal Justice Matters, vol. 90, no. 1, 2012, pp. 43-44,www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09627251.2012.751247.

Liebelson, Dana. "In Prison, and Fighting to Vote." The Atlantic, 6 Sept. 2019,www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/when-prisoners-demand-voting-rights/597190/.

Lopez, German. "The Democratic Debate over Letting People in Prison Vote, Explained." Vox,13 May 2019, www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/13/18535423/prisoner-felon-voting-rights-bernie-sanders-2020.

Marshall, Pablo. "Voting from prison: against the democratic case fordisenfranchisement." Ethics & Global Politics, vol. 11, no. 3, 2018, p. 1498696,www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16544951.2018.1498696.

Walsh, Caspar. "Why Prisoners Should Be Given the Right to Vote." The Guardian,1 Dec. 2017, www.theguardian.com/society/2012/jun/05/prisoners-right-to-vote.