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Comment on voting rights for prisoners (17 December 2010)

Commenting on the Government's announcement that prisoners serving less than four years are to get the right to vote, Jon Collins, Campaign Director at the Criminal Justice Alliance, said:

"We are pleased that the Government is at last taking some positive steps towards giving prisoners the vote. It has been more than six years since the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK's disenfranchisement of all sentenced prisoners is illegal, and it is a disgrace that action has not been taken to address this before now.

"However the decision to limit the right to vote to those prisoners serving less than four years is the wrong one. Not only is it unlikely to survive a challenge to the European Court of Human Rights, which has recently ruled in another case that an approach based on sentence-length alone is illegal, but it also ignores the basic principle that in a democracy, everybody counts.

"Voting is a right, not a privilege, and there is nothing about prisoners serving longer terms that makes them an exception to this simple rule. Indeed, it may be particularly important to ensure that prisoners serving longer sentences remain engaged with wider society while they are in prison, and allowing them to participate politically can help to achieve this.

"It would also be a mistake to prevent prisoners from voting in local elections and other referenda. To promote re-integration on leaving prison, prisoners should be able to take part in local politics by voting in local elections, encouraging an interest in their community.

"We welcome the Government's decision to take long-overdue action on the important issue of prisoners' voting rights, but urge them to think again about their misconceived plans to limit the vote to those serving a prison sentence of less than four years."