Lincoln-Douglas Debate Topic: Voting Rights for Convicted Felons
Jason Kuznicki on Nov 6th 2008
Jim Anderson writes a gem of a blog at Decorabilia. He also coaches high school debate, and the resolution for the current Lincoln-Douglas debate season is as follows:
In a democratic society, felons ought to retain the right to vote.
As food for thought, Jim kindly linked to our recent discussion of positive rights and the social contract, which I think is apposite, although I didn’t write it with the Lincoln-Douglas debate in mind.
Here’s something I would offer that speaks directly to the resolution.
Why is it fair and valid to presume that disenfranchisement is a logical or natural consequence of violating the social contract? In other words, does an argument to the social contract really run deep enough?
This is a very good question. There are essentially two justifications for punishment in modern political thought: retribution and restitution. (Others exist, including communal expiation and symbolic repudiation, and while the latter might actually explain denial of suffrage quite well, they both belong to premodern political thought and deserve separate treatment.)
Restitution aims at making the victim whole again insofar as it is possible, while inflicting on the aggressor a harm that is proportionate to his crime. An ideal act of restitution would see the victim fully compensated, and the aggressor would suffer to exactly the same degree that he might be suffering if he had inflicted the harm in question on himself. Transaction costs in all of this are another interesting question, but one we need not get into here.
Of all the various theories of punishment, libertarianism tends to favor restitution for crime. This is one reason among many why we reject the idea of victimless crimes: Even granting the existence of victimless crimes, their “restitution” has already been extracted from the so-called aggressor.
But for many other sorts of crimes, achieving restitution is easier said than done, which is part of why so many people turn to the other theory of punishment, retribution. H. L. Mencken said it best:
A keeps a store and has a bookkeeper, B. B steals $700, employs it in playing at dice or bingo, and is cleaned out. What is A to do? Let B go? If he does so he will be unable to sleep at night. The sense of injury, of injustice, of frustration will haunt him like pruritus. So he turns B over to the police, and they hustle B to prison. Thereafter A can sleep. More, he has pleasant dreams. He pictures B chained to the wall of a dungeon a hundred feet underground, devoured by rats and scorpions. It is so agreeable that it makes him forget his $700.
[From A Mencken Chrestomathy, New York: Vintage Books, 1982, p 119.]
If we can’t make the victim whole, one inexhaustible resource still remains: We can compensate the victim, so to speak, by giving him joy in another person’s suffering. The degree to which we can glory in the pain of others is theoretically boundless.
Libertarians aren’t the only ones to cringe at this — there are strong Kantian reasons to oppose socially sanctioned suffering — but it’s obvious (to me at least) that denial of voting rights accomplishes only the retributive kind of justice, with no restitution at all, and perhaps denial of suffrage isn’t even all that great at retribution. I don’t know about you folks, but concerning my own enemies, giving them just one night in a pit full of rats and scorpions would cause me far more pleasant dreams.
Filed in The Ballot, The Bench
You don’t mention the fact that the felony might ought not to be a felony in the first place. Disenfranchisement systematically removes from the political process those people most likely to be strong advocates for changing the injust law. What’s more, the other penalties associated with being a felon make it very difficult for non-felonious supporters to voice support, for fear of being socially lumped in with the felons.
I don’t think that those in jail should be allowed to vote. But once they are released they should be allowed to vote. After all, the hope is that when released they will become productive members of society. If they care enough to vote, it is a very good sign.
a lurker:
Interestingly, the resolution doesn’t offer that as an option or a potential nuance. I agree with your rationale about release. But what is your rationale for while they’re in prison?
Thanks for the link, Jason. I wonder if disenfranchisement can be justified as a disqualification, rather than as a retributive punishment. Disenfranchisement, after all, isn’t part of the sentencing scheme, but regulatory in nature (which is why it is useless as a deterrent).
The social contractarian, perhaps adopting a stance echoing Rawls’ “duty of fair play,” could argue that by voluntarily violating the rules, the offender has disqualified herself from shaping the rules, at least while under sentence. Since suffrage is a positive right only for (adult) citizens, it would follow that disenfranchisement would be at least a temporary rescinding of citizenship.
One possible concern with the disenfranchisement of felons is that it gives politicians an incentive to make felonies of the sort of crimes (or not-really-crimes) the other team tends to commit.
Denial of social interaction is a form of retribution, but in the current system, you are exchanging one social system with another. There are two worlds, and each have their own dynamic, their own economy, and their own socialism. In one, the punishment is the other, but where in that world does the punishment lie? You can lose everything, since even in a prison, there is relative freedom of action, words, and such, tempered only by the more repressed and degenerate behaviors that are openly possible in a socially confined environment. And that even includes the child’s “corner” in kindergarten.
Isolation is a form of punishment only acceptable by those who are deprived of that individual. If that individual wants that socialism, he is retributed and conforms to societal norms and earns the right back; otherwise, he gains momentum for his behavior by conforming to the new society within prison, and gains freedom with through its socialism, and there is no more “prison” involved. How so, then, have the “victims” truly gained in this state, versus the loss the “punished” feel? What is your goal for imprisonment, and what do you think is truly gained?
Restitution is a community-driven device, and in this it reuires the punished to make up his crime to those he hurt, and this should be direct: The only way to value the pain or suffering of a victim is to have the victim choose the punishment, and have it be in accordance to the loss. One cannot feel that death is an adequate punishment for loss of a trinket, or loss of hands for any theft, but it is okay to kill someone for the loss of one’s peace of mind and potential future joy for rapine?
I think for either retribution and restitution, society as a whole should decide, as it is the community that suffers if one individual is lost.
Oh, LD debate. That takes me back.
Under the 24th Amendment, it’s unconstitutional to deny convicted felons the vote in federal elections, if their crime consisted solely of tax evasion. I don’t know if this is recognized in law.
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Is it true that the only reason we lock up serial killers is for retribution or punishment? Nonsense. We lock them up to keep them from doing further harm. Similarly, sex offenders must register because they pose a high risk of committing another crime, not as either retribution or punishment. Convicted felons can be expected to be a single-issue voting block whose issue is weakening the criminal justice system. Two-thirds of released felons are arrested again within three years, but because only 45% of violent crimes are actually solved, the true rate is higher than that. We are discussing career criminals whose lifestyle benefits from a weak criminal justice system.
Are those under eighteen and those who are non-citizens being deprived of the vote as punishment? No. In the case of youth, society believes them to have immature judgment. Non-citizens may reasonably expected to have interests not aligned with those of ordinary citizens. Criminals have neither good judgment nor interests aligned with ordinary citizens.
Convicted felons should have their vote restored only after they have proved they have reformed, so that society can be assured that they will vote with interests similar to other citizens. Perhaps ten years free from conviction would be convincing evidence of that.
Service guarantees citizenship. Would you like to know more?
Ray –
I have no argument with your first claim, in theory, but this is not how we commonly talk about criminal justice penalties. Usually they are explained explained as “paying a debt to society” (restitution), or as retribution. To my mind, prison is only rarely thought of as “put them away so they can’t cause trouble.” And this leaves aside other forms of punishment, such as fines, which this approach can’t justify.
Also, this justification is more transparently ineffective than the others, since a) prisoners still commit crimes in prison and b) ex-prisoners commit lots more crimes than people who have not done time.
Otherwise, you make reasonable points all around.
Nothing seems to be easier than seeing someone whom you can help but not helping.
I suggest we start giving it a try. Give love to the ones that need it.
God will appreciate it.