Should People in Prison have a Right to Vote? | Philosophy Tube

1. 

   @javelinfalcon2298

   January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

   In an authoritarian country, everyone is a prisoner. If the government says you are a criminal, then you are a criminal, even if you have done nothing bad.

2. 

   @jonathanshaw6784

   January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

   Another reason to allow prisoners to vote is that denying them the right opens the door to tyranny.

   By passing laws that disproportionately imprison their opponents, they can ensure that they stay in power. It incentivises them to pass unjust laws that target their opponents.

3. 

   @thevirtualjim

   January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

   Interesting that Clegg assumes that all criminals are arrested and jailed and noone who is not a criminal is ever arrested and jailed. 🙁

4. 

   @manyeyedcrow9391

   January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

   In the United States, unfortunately, voting is not universally considered a right, even for those not in prison. Most modern conservatives believe that voting is a privilege, granted by sovereign legislatures, and can be revoked at will. The Supreme court famously decided the 2000 Presidential election on this basis.

5. 

   @gaggleduck1787

   January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

   Bowling Ball head wants this to spread her Socialist ways.

6. 

   @ericherman5413

   January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

   Abigail, this is still an issue in 2023. Would you be willing and able to address it again with a deeper dive?

7. 

   @stefrost4029

   January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

   "I'm not Russell Brand" has recently become a much bigger flex.

8. 

   @lolzfriend852

   January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

   This is all well and good but I need points AGAINST too so I can WIN MY CLASS DEBATE

9. 

   @stevechance150

   January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

   I don't have a problem with taking the right to vote away from prisoners, because prisoners would only vote for politicians who wanted to serve the interests of prisoners. This seems selfish on the part of the prisoners, but can you blame them for not thinking about others. Using this same logic, why don't we take the right to vote away from the retiree population (65 years old, plus). They exhibit the same voting behavior as the prisoners, voting exclusively for politicians that serve the interests of the elderly, at the expense of the younger generations.

10. 

    @billmalcolm4291

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    Allowed? No, it should be mandatory for prisoners to vote.

11. 

    @DarthBorehd

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    Prisoners have proven that they make bad decisions, otherwise they wouldn't be prisoners, right? If they make bad decisions, can they be trusted with voting?

12. 

    @ratumelimatanatoto2488

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    Ireland has seen a huge spike in crimes in the last 4 years and due to the early 2023 year rates it is bound to be record year in criminal activities.
    So there might be a correlation to giving the right to vote to criminals 7 years ago

13. 

    @rekall76

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    many free citizens vote with pro-crime agendas in mind… but profit-at-any-cost is not unilaterally regarded as a crime

14. 

    @donald-parker

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    If not voting was a crime (which I find a compelling idea), and criminals were not allowed to vote, then non-voters (and therefore, criminals) would not be allowed to vote. Which makes incarceration for purposes of reform …. funny?

15. 

    @KilloreTroute

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    I think I'm still against people voting while incarcerated. I do believe once a person has served their sentence they should be allowed to vote. It's not unusual to have some rights taken away when one is incarcerated.

    Not all crimes are the same. On the one hand, I have no problem with shoplifters having their rights restored. However, I am uneasy about convicted rapists or murders getting those rights back.

    It is certainly an interesting issue.

16. 

    @antonidamk

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    A few points against denying prisoners the right to vote that haven't been mentioned for a while at least:

    Why do we assume that there is a 'moral authority' to the law? Yes, the law as a concept aspires to it, but the theories for the law actually having moral authority are easily falsified (i.e. there are plenty of examples of immoral laws). So we have to be careful that when someone is imprisoned for breaking the law, at best what you have is the society is using force on your behalf to punish someone for doing something you, and the majority of people (simplifying democracy) dislike. This is a fundamental point – just because you dislike it, or even believe it to be immoral, does not mean that it is in essence immoral or should be stopped. The law can at best give an approximation – because it is a regular poll of the population, in which a majority of people agree with you.

    But if you put away all the people who disagree with you, the poll will no longer be of the whole population, and then how will you know that your view is still the most popular? What if you are wrong? What if all the people you put away in prison were right?

    History has given us plenty of examples of people viewing something as morally wrong only to change their minds as a majority. Same-sex relationships used to be a crime; now same-sex marriage has been allowed. Abortions used to be a crime; now they (still technically are but with wide defences that mean practically) they are not. Still think that's immoral? Well before black and white people mixing was thought wrong. And there was no free speech, etc etc. Whatever laws you think are the ones which uphold modern day morality, there was a time when the majority would not agree with you. And we still do not agree across the world.

    So what is so fundamental about this point is that over time, the system will systematically skew towards the status quo (because fewer people are voting), and so the laws are no longer the will of the majority, but the will of the majority of those who already agree with the laws.

    Now you may think this is ok, but then democracy is not actually what you are striving for. (Cue episode on what is democracy…)

    Now, a counter-argument might be that even if we accept that the people in prison have a point, you could still say that they should vote for changing the law and get it changed before breaking it.

    However, in response to this one might say, why do we assume that prisoners choose to break the law? Offending behaviour is very complex, and by far not every prisoner is in prison because they disrespect the law and don't care about others. Say someone is in prison for theft; why should they have no say on murder?

    And if we cannot say for sure that people's actions are intentional, and a matter of their free will, then how can we be justified in exercising the moral authority of punishment over them?

17. 

    @bassem500

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    Thank you for bringing this issue to the audiences attention. I did not give this issue much thought before. Now, thanks to you, I have an informed opinion. I support the vote for prisoners.

18. 

    @chriskibler7998

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    Hell no ! No voting rights for inmates.

19. 

    @OUTSIDER40

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    Thank you for making this video, I agree that prisoners should have the right to vote in the UK 🇬🇧👍

20. 

    @scottswagman1472

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    A murderer took the right to vote away from his victim.

21. 

    @drmartin5062

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    Republics are funny things. The strongest ones get undone by the silliest things. Rome was brought down by allowing non landowners to join the army. Those legions that were raised felt more loyalty to general then the state. Civil wars eventually led to Roman empire. Indirect causes of dumb arguments hinging on fairness,equally and whatever else makes you feel ethnically justified are dangerous as hell

22. 

    @drmartin5062

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    What's amazing is democracies since their inception knew that for a democracy to function properly voters needed to actually demonstrate a connection and a stake in the nation. This allows them to have an interest in the policies and consequences of an election. They vote 97% Democrat. The only ones pushing for it are…. DEMOCRATS. They don't care about making our country string, they care about staying in power no matter the cost

23. 

    @danwylie-sears1134

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    You can have a deontological approach, and still think that voting restrictions (and in particular, a process for lifting those restrictions) could be useful in rehabilitation.

    Of course, the US apparently has no interest in rehabilitating anyone. The entire criminal system of injustice exists to express voters' irrational animus toward prisoners. People have a tendency like the idea of someone else being harmed, and if there's a story providing a thin veneer of supposition that they deserve it, so much the better — and the nature of politics is to systematically bring out the worst in people.

24. 

    @shamtradtam3769

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    Man, plz. There are clear holes in your arguments that you conveniently jump over. We shouldn't remove all rights from prisoners. Voting should be removed because voting is about having a voice in making laws and prisoners are proven to not obey laws. That's why. If you choose to not play the game, you don't get to play the game. It's also not disproportionate, long term prisoners can't vote for more elections.

25. 

    @brennenderopa

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    Why should we do something the EU tells us to do. Well. Uhm. Yeah.

26. 

    @MendelBreakdown

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    At least in the states, the existence of the police and prison system means that none of us actually have any rights. Which is a lovely thought.

27. 

    @arasharfa

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    the only way I could justify taking away prisoners voting rights was if they entered the societal contract with consent.

28. 

    @LogicGated

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    Politician profoundly affect their live and as such they deserve their right to vote as much as any other citizen.

29. 

    @Badartist888

    January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

    The problem with the idea that if you break the law you chose to give up your vote/ social contract is that it is possible to break the law without meaning to (1) gives people who can afford better access to legal defences more rights, and means that groups can be criminalised and so disenfranchised (ie the homeless).

    (1) seeing the numbers of teenage girls who have been convicted and placed on the sex offenders register for 'creation of child pornography' aka nude selfies (sometimes which they have had for non-sexual reasons and the pics have been stolen) the idea that they lose their vote is not a great one (if we are talking the USA, permanent vote loss system). It is also quite easy to have someone convicted for a minor crime. So it really depends on where the threshold is. If you only go crimes that have a custodial time attached to them then we go back to good lawyers and people pleading to get bonds rather than jail

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