What Rights should Prisoners have? Part 2
Drawing the line as regards what rights prisoners retain and which they forfeit is not as straightforward as might appear. Whatever rights they lose have to be decided on a logically consistent basis.
The right to vote is a good example. On the one hand one might legitimately think that a prisoner whose offence is sufficiently severe to merit imprisonment has put themselves outside the law and hence should have no part in the democratic decision-making process. Having forfeited the basic right of liberty they forfeit various rights ancillary to that. As against that, there may be no logical distinction between the prisoner who is able to vote and the one who is not. Someone receiving a seven-day sentence when a general election is imminent could lose the right to vote, yet someone could serve four years in jail and whilst missing local elections still be able to vote in the general election. The line between custodial and non-custodial penalties can often be fine, yet one could involve loss of the right to vote and the other does not.
There is also a potentially more fundamental objection to the loss of the right to vote. The legislature of the day, usually at the behest of the government, passes the legislation. That legislation could be political in its intent (for example a statute preventing people demonstrating in particular areas). Allowing imprisonment to lead to deprivation of the right to vote could in fact lead to "political" crimes leading to loss of liberty which would extend to the inability to vote as the means of removing the existing government. It is not too hard to think of situations where this could lead to Draconian and adverse consequences.
Whilst therefore there are cogent grounds for suggesting that prisoners could not really complain if they lost the right to vote, on balance it seems that they should retain it.
Obviously prisoners can expect to receive food and shelter and medical treatment. No other approach would be satisfactory. However this in itself can lead to complaints. Although much medical care is free at the point of delivery, some is not (dentistry in particular). This has led to complaints from people who cannot afford treatment to suggest that prisoners are in fact in some respects better off than the poor law-abiding.
Other "rights" would seem to be lost as part of a deprivation of liberty. Prisoners are of necessity not able to come and go as they wish. Their contact with other people is restricted both as regards seeing them and supervision of the contact and what is and is not allowed to be handed over. It follows that loss of time with spouse or partner (including sexual relations) is an inevitable corollary of that. It also means that prisoners should not have the "right" (contrary to the views expressed in human rights courts) to start a family by the use of artificial insemination. This is a severe interference with ordinary life and freedoms, but ordinary life and freedom cannot be expected to continue during imprisonment.
The aim should always be to treat prisoners humanely whilst making restriction of liberty mean something. Next week we shall look at how prisoners should spend their time and what purposes imprisonment can legitimately pursue, and what result imprisonment should look to achieve.