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| HMP Norwich, Britannia Barracks Photo by: Caroline Astell |
Surrounded by ‘keep calm’
posters, tea drinkers and all things stereotypically British you wouldn’t know
you were in anything but a normal quaint little café, with a great view sipping
earl grey, unless you looked behind you.
The crumbling Victorian structure
of HMP Norwich is not something that can be easily missed upon approach to this
popular establishment, even with the stunning panoramic views over the whole of
Norwich.
The location isn’t the only thing
slightly different about Café Britannia, as most of the staff waiting on the
mismatched tables are serving prisoners or ex-offenders.
Tim Ansell, a 29 year old
ex-offender is one of them. He has
recently been released from prison having served an 8 ½ year sentence for
threatening to kill someone. Ansell was
issued with an Indeterminate sentence for the Protection of the Public (IPP) in
2006.
The controversial topic of
whether prisoners should be allowed to vote has been in the spotlight since
2005 when convicted killer John Hirst took the UK to the European Court of
Human Rights over the issue and won.
The subject is one that has split
the country pretty much down the middle.
Ansell is among those who believe prisoners should not be allowed to
vote.
Looking slightly nervous, he was
quiet and almost mousy, tall with dark eyes he appeared to have strong feelings
about what he thought the rights of prisoners should be.
Ansell said: “I think it’s just a
given understanding that when you’re incarcerated you will obviously have your
civil liberties removed from you and one of those is the right to vote.”
“It’s just part of the package
you receive, I don’t think you should be able to vote purely because you know
you committed a crime and the laws of the land state that you may face a
penalty that’s appropriate” such as a custodial sentence.
He argued that: “If you’re going
to let me vote then why not let me go to the shop, you know where are you going
to draw the line?”
In February 2015, the European
Court of Human Rights ruled for the fourth time against the UK’s blanket ban on
the right of prisoners to vote and with the recent election many are hoping to
see a change in the law.
Alex Hewson from the Prison
Reform Trust disagrees with Ansell saying prisoners should be allowed to
vote.
He argues that: “People are sent
to prison to lose their liberty; not their identity. The 19th Century punishment of
civic death makes no sense in a 21st Century prison system focussed
on effective rehabilitation.”
Hewson said: “Nearly 65 000 UK
citizens were denied the vote in last week’s general election.”
He said: “Under the UK’s blanket
ban, declared unlawful by the European Court over a decade ago, people serving
a custodial sentence are unable to vote.
People held on remand are allowed to vote but often can’t.”
The Prison Reform Trust feels
that: “The UK is out of step with other European countries, as well as many
states around the world.”
The European Court of Human
Rights have told the UK government on 4 separate occasions that the current
laws on prisoners’ rights to vote are in breach of Article 3 of the First
Protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights, which says everyone is
entitled to free and fair elections.
Sean Humber, Partner and Head of
the Human Rights Department at the law firm Leigh Day in London, represented
over 500 prisoners in the most recent action taken to Strasbourg.
Humber specialises in prison law
and has represented prisoners in a variety of matters for the last 15
years.
He said, this last action was
first brought shortly after the 2010 general election and has been “chuntering
back and forth for the last few years.”
“The blanket ban remained in
place despite our letters to the government, so we decided to take it to
Strasbourg.”
Even though the ECHR ruled in
favour of the prisoners earlier this year, a “flaw of the system is that it is
left to the government to sort out the matter once they’ve found to be in
breach” as there is no “formal mechanism in place to enforce it” meaning that
the UK government don’t actually have to change the law if they don’t want
to.
Humber said: “Personally I think
all prisoners should be allowed to vote, they still remain a part of society,
they use the NHS, they have families that use the education system, some of
them work and even pay taxes” whilst in prison.
“It seems strange that they
shouldn’t be allowed to vote. The idea
of a kind of ‘civic death’ when you go into prison is an attitude from the
Victorian times.”
Since the rulings in Strasbourg
there have been suggestions that maybe some prisoners and not others should be
allowed to vote, as it is only the ‘blanket ban’ that has been found to be in
breach.
Humber argued that some
governments aren’t prepared to go as far as to allow all prisoners to vote and
so maybe those with shorter sentences or those coming to the end of their terms
should be awarded the vote.
Humber is not alone in his belief
that prisoners should be allowed to vote.
Frank Owens, 41, author of the ‘The Little Guide to Prison, a Beginners
Guide’ and ex-offender also thinks that prisoners should be allowed the
vote, but thinks this is unlikely to happen.
Owens, also known as prisoner
A1443CA, served a year in prison for witness intimidation, but says his
incarceration was due to his, then untreated, bipolar disorder.
He believes that anyone who has
committed a crime that is not a Category A prisoner should be allowed to
vote. They are “a resident of the UK”
and therefore “should be eligible to vote.”
But with over 90, 000 people
incarcerated in the UK, this represents quite a small percentage of the total
number of people allowed to vote. Owens
argues, that politicians would lose more than 90 000 votes if they were to push
to allow prisoners the right, so it simply isn’t worth it. It would cause more problems than it would
solve.
He said: “There are two types of
criminality, the ones that get caught and the ones that don’t.”
“If you ride a train and don’t
pay for a ticket and walk away you have committed a crime. But if you haven’t got caught then you’re not
a criminal and you’re allowed to vote.”
It comes back to the argument of
where to draw the line, and who in society should be allowed to decide where
that line is drawn.
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