Citizen convicts: Prisoners, politics and the vote

By Cormac Behan

Prisoner enfranchisement remains one of the few contested electoral issues in twenty-first-century democracies. It is at the intersection of punishment and representative government. Many jurisdictions remain divided on whether or not prisoners should be allowed access to the franchise. This book investigates the experience of prisoner enfranchisement in the Republic of Ireland. It examines the issue in a comparative context, beginning by locating prisoner enfranchisement in a theoretical framework, exploring the arguments for and against allowing prisoners to vote. Drawing on global developments in jurisprudence and penal policy, it examines the background to, and wider significance of, this change in the law. Using the Irish experience to examine the issue in a wider context, this book argues that the legal position concerning the voting rights of the imprisoned reveals wider historical, political and social influences in the treatment of those confined in penal institutions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: May 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781526101730

Cormac Behan

Cormac Behan is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Sheffield

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

List of figures and tables

Table of legislation

Table of cases

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Citizenship by civic virtue?

Introduction

The case for prisoner disenfranchisement

Civil death

Social contract

Purity of the ballot box

Punishment as character forming

Voting bloc

Let the people decide

Regaining the right to vote

The case for prisoner enfranchisement

Citizen or subject

Elected choosing the electorate

Social construction of criminality

The prisoner as ‘other’

Reintegration

Election outcomes

Punishment to fit the crime

Conclusion

2 Prisoners and the politics of enfranchisement

Introduction

International policy and practice

Electoral law

Asserting prisoners' right to vote

Israel: ‘the infrastructure of democracy’

Palestine: ‘the rights of prisoners, as part of society to participate’

South Africa: ‘it says that everybody counts’

Canada: ‘teaching democratic values and social responsibility’

Australia: ‘exercise of the franchise reflects notions of citizenship’

Hong Kong: ‘incentive to citizen-like conduct’

Resisting enfranchisement

United States of America: ‘an outlier in the world scene’

Europe: ‘the free expression of the opinion of the people’

United Kingdom: ‘parliament to decide, not a foreign court’

ECtHR response to Hirst: ‘the margin in this area is wide’

Conclusion

3 Political change, penal continuity and prisoner enfranchisement

Introduction

Political representation and penal politics

‘A fit and proper person’

‘Put him in to get him out’

Political change

Penal continuity, electoral reform and prisoner litigation

Penal continuity

Electoral reform

Prisoner litigation

Prisoner enfranchisement

Change comes quietly

‘And the sky didn't fall down …’

Conclusion

4 Voting and political engagement

Introduction

The Irish penal landscape

Arbour Hill

Training Unit

Shelton Abbey

The research

Prisoners go to the polls

Registration

Captive citizens

Electoral outcomes

Political participation and civic engagement

The politics of prisoners

Tradition of voting

Political prisoners?

Political knowledge

Political issues among prisoners

Democratic deficits

Trust

Who votes in prison?

Age, education, sentence length and institution

Voting history and representation

Politics, duty to vote and trust

Predicting voters

Prisoners at the polls: 2008–11

Lisbon Treaty referendum, 2008

Local, European and by-elections, 2009

General election, 2011

Voting turnout among prisoners

Conclusion

5 Enfranchisement – the prisoner as citizen

Introduction

‘It was a historic thing to do’

‘They are still citizens, aren't they?’

‘Prison is a very negative place’

‘It's a different society in here’

‘If we didn't deserve their time’

Conclusion

6 Civic engagement and community participation

Introduction

Citizenship as participation

Active citizenship

Prisoners and social capital

Participation prior to prison

Citizenship inside

From citizen to prisoner?

Prisoner participation

Prison programmes

Education

Volunteering

Political contact

Oversight and monitoring bodies

Compliant citizens

Conclusion

7 Imprisonment and citizenship

Embracing the franchise: re-engaging citizens

Registration and voting

Disillusion and disconnection

Citizenship post imprisonment

Reforming penal systems and engaging convicts

Prisoners and citizenship

Making citizens

Participative citizens

Prisoner representation

Reimagining imprisonment

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Citizen convicts

Prisoners, politics and the vote

Cormac Behan

Manchester University Press

Manchester and New York

distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

Copyright © Cormac Behan 2014

The right of Cormac Behan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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For my mother and father

List of figures and tables

Figures

4.1 General election 2007: registration and voting patterns

4.2 General election 2007: party preference

4.3 Are you political?

4.4 Political awareness among prisoners

4.5 Political issues

4.6 Levels of trust

4.7 Voting in Irish prisons: 2007–11

5.1 Abstentionism among prisoners

6.1 Civic participation prior to prison

6.2 Civic participation inside prison

Tables

1.1 Arguments for and against disenfranchisement of prisoners

4.1 General election 2007: voting in Irish prisons

4.2 General election 2007: regression analysis of voters in prison

4.3 Lisbon Treaty referendum 2008: voting in Irish prisons

4.4 Lisbon Treaty referendum 2008: voting by prison

4.5 Local, European and by-elections 2009: voting in Irish prisons

4.6 Local, European and by-elections 2009: voting by prison

4.7 General election 2011: voting in Irish prisons

4.8 General election 2011: voting by prison

Table of legislation

Australia

Commonwealth and Franchise Act 1902

Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Act 2006

Canada

Canada Elections Act 2000

Ireland

Electoral Act 1923

Prevention of Electoral Abuses Act 1923

Prisons (Visiting Committee) Act 1925

Rules for the Government of Prisons 1947

Juries Act 1976

Electoral (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1986

Electoral Act 1992

Electoral (Amendment) Act 2006

Prisons Act 2007

Norway

Enforcement of Sentences Act 2002

South Africa

Electoral Law Amendment Act 2003

United Kingdom

Forfeiture Act 1870

Representation of the People Act 1918

Representation of the People Act 1981

Representation of the People Act 1983

Human Rights Act 1998

Representation of the People Act 2000

Criminal Justice Act 2003

Table of cases

Australia

Roach v. Electoral Commission [2007] HCA 43, 26 September 2007

Canada

Sauvé v. Canada (Chief Electoral Officer) [2002] 3 SCR 519

European Commission of Human Rights

Holland v. Ireland, Application no. 24827/94 (judgment of 14 April 1998)

European Court of Human Rights

Hirst v. United Kingdom (No. 1), Application no. 74025/01 (judgment of 30 March 2004)

Hirst v. United Kingdom (No. 2) [GC], Application no. 74025/01 (judgment of 6 October 2005)

Frodl v. Austria, Application no. 20201/04 (judgment of 8 April 2010)

Greens and M.T. v. United Kingdom, Application no. 600041/08 and no. 60054/08 (judgment of 23 November 2010)

Scoppola v. Italy (No. 3), Application no. 126/05 (judgment of 22 May 2012)

Hong Kong

Chan Kin Sum Simon v. Secretary for Justice and Electoral Affairs Commission, High Court AL 79/2008

Leung Kwok Hung v. Secretary for Justice and Electoral Affairs Commission, High Court AL 82/2008

Choi Chuen Sun v. Secretary for Justice and Electoral Affairs Commission, High Court AL 83/2008

Ireland

Breathnach v. Ireland and the Attorney General [2000] IEHC 53

Breathnach v. Ireland and the Attorney General [2001] IESC 59

Draper v. Attorney General [1984] ILRM 643

South Africa

August and Another v. Electoral Commission and Others, CCT 8/99 [1999]

Minster of Home Affairs v. National Institute for Crime Prevention and Re-Integration (NICRO), CCT 03/04 [2004]

United Kingdom

W. Smith v. Electoral Registration Officer [2007] CSIH 9 XA33/04

Pearson and Martinez v. Secretary of State for the Home Department EWHC [2001] Admin 239 (4 April 2001)

Pearson and Martinez v. Secretary of State for the Home Department EWCA [2001] EWCA Civ 927 (18 June 2001)

Pearson and Others v. Home Office [2001] CO/31/01 and CO/448101, 2001

Raymond v. Honey [1983] 1 AC 1

R. v. Secretary of State, ex parte Toner and Walsh [2007] NIQB 18

United States

Washington v. State, 75 Alabama 582 [1884]

Green v. Board of Elections of City of New York J S [1967] USCA2 375; 380 F.2d 445 (13 June 1967)

Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24 [1974]

Foreword

When I first arrived with my audio recorder to ask prisoners about disenfranchisement, the officials were incredulous. ‘You want to ask about politics? These guys don't care about voting. Your interviews won't last 5 minutes’. Ah, but people do care about voting – especially people who have been told they cannot vote. To be sure, many had never voted and many would never have the opportunity to do so. Nevertheless, they had wide-ranging political opinions and experiences, so those hasty interviews turned into much longer conversations.

But prison officials were not the only sceptics. The initial response from academics was downright discouraging. Criminologists could not imagine how political rights would be salient to US prisoners, when they had so many other pressing material needs. To be fair, law professors viewed the topic as ‘interesting’, but only insofar as it engaged some rather esoteric and narrowly framed philosophical and legal questions. And, to my great surprise, political scientists and sociologists seemed completely uninterested in disenfranchisement. Many dismissed voting as a ‘thin’ form of political participation – something hardly worth mentioning these days. Real political engagement, for these scholars, meant activism and movement participation.

Cormac Behan knows better than that. Long before scholars like Jeff Manza and I took up felon disenfranchisement in Locked Out, Cormac had been teaching political education in Irish prisons. I cannot overemphasise the importance of this experience – and the depth that it brings to Citizen Convicts. Frankly, too much of the scholarly work on disenfranchisement has a lamentable ‘armchair’ quality. That is, it seems to have been written at great remove from those affected by the practice.

Just as certain themes seem to inspire more than their share of bad poetry – take moonflowers, for example – so too, the topic of felon disenfranchisement seems to inspire a lot of untethered bloviating: untethered because the work is not grounded in concrete empirical referents; bloviating because the platitudes are too easy, the metaphors too obvious. One might see little harm in trotting out naïve platitudes about disenfranchisement, without ever engaging the people who have lost or regained that right. Yet such authors tend to make equally untethered assumptions about the actual human beings subject to disenfranchisement, treating them as some sort of strange and exotic species. Depending on the political sensibilities of the writer, they might be demonised as brutes, sentimentalised as harmless victims or romanticised as revolutionaries.

Citizen Convicts, in contrast, offers a sharp and cogent presentation of the actual political behaviour of real people in prisons. But it does more than that. After a balanced discussion of the rationale for and against felon disenfranchisement, Doctor Behan presents a textured analysis of case studies in South Africa, Israel, Australia and Canada, as well as the United States and the United Kingdom. This offers an excellent framing for the detailed and authoritative analysis of the fascinating case of the Republic of Ireland. In both the Republic and in Northern Ireland, prisoners and former prisoners have long played an exceptionally visible and pivotal part in political life.

Two eye-opening empirical chapters come next: results of the first comprehensive survey about prisoners' political life, and a qualitative presentation of in-depth interviews with 50 prisoners. We learn that about 10 per cent of eligible prisoners cast ballots in 2007 and that they tended to favour Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and the Green Party. Rates of voting and volunteering within prison are significantly higher, however, both exceeding 50 per cent among interview participants. The next chapter broadens the scope of analysis to include other forms of civic engagement and participation, inside and outside prison walls. Finally, the book concludes by making a strong case for viewing prisoners as citizens and creating the space needed for their more active participation.

Although prisoners may have a more complicated relationship with the state than other groups, their political views and experiences are not all that dissimilar from those of your friends and neighbours. Which issues are most important to them? Certainly not crime and punishment. Citizen Convicts reveals that they were far more likely to list the health service, the economy and political corruption as the most important political issue. Here and throughout, we learn precisely how prisoners remain citizens while incarcerated – and how we cannot assume the roles they play as prisoners trump or even dominate their political identities and behaviours.

Some prison walls are real, but others are illusory. I invite you to engage with Cormac Behan's work and to reflect on its implications for the conceptual wall dividing ‘prisoner’ and ‘citizen’ in public consciousness.

Christopher Uggen

Distinguished McKnight Professor of Sociology

University of Minnesota

Acknowledgements

It is a great pleasure to thank the many people who have provided assistance during the writing of this book. Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who participated in the surveys and interviews that form the basis of this study. They contributed to the development of my ideas and enriched my understanding of political participation among prisoners. The Governors and staff of the prisons where the research was undertaken made me welcome. The co-operation of Governor Liam Dowling of Arbour Hill Prison, Governor John O'Brien of the Training Unit and Governor Hector MacLennan of Shelton Abbey Prison was much appreciated. Frank Daly, Aisling Kerr and Ian Stuart Mills of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and John McDermott of the Irish Prison Service readily provided data on registration and voting among prisoners. Dick Roche, former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government kindly agreed to be interviewed for this study.

This book began as a PhD thesis. I would especially like to thank my supervisor Ian O'Donnell for all his guidance and support over the course of my research. Mairead Seymour encouraged me to undertake this study at an early stage. A number of people helped along the way, including Chris Bennett, Donal Coffey, Richard Collins, Anne Costello, Suzanne Egan, Angela Ennis, Ted Fleming, Deirdre Healy, Ben Hunter, Richard Kirkham, Nicola Hughes, Bill Muth, Aogán Mulcahy, Mary Rogan, Brandon Rottinghaus, Mick Ryan, Zacahry Sex, Richard Sinnott and Kevin Warner. I am grateful for the support from the Center for the Study of Correctional Education at California State University, San Bernardino, especially Thom Gehring, Carolyn Eggleston, Randall Wright and Scott Rennie. Christopher Uggen very kindly agreed to write the foreword. I am particularly indebted to Paula Egan, Stephen Farrall, Bernie Hanlon, Gwen Robinson and Jim Wallington who read full drafts of the manuscript. I appreciate their honesty. Any errors and opinions remain my own.

I would not have been in a position to undertake this research without an Ad Astra scholarship from University College Dublin and I am very happy to acknowledge this financial support. I am grateful to the publishers of the British Journal of Criminology, the Prison Journal and the Howard Journal for allowing me to use some of the material in this book that was initially published in these journals.

I was fortunate to begin this study at the UCD Institute of Criminology which provided a warm and rich learning environment. I completed this book in my new home at the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Sheffield. I am grateful for the assistance from both academic and administrative staff in Dublin and Sheffield.

I spent 14 years teaching history and politics in Irish prisons. I am indebted to the students I had the opportunity to teach and the staff and teachers of the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee for their co-operation, support and especially good humour over the years. I stand in awe at the endeavours of teachers and students as they engage in pedagogy in the hope of a better future.

Trisha Murphy deserves special recognition. As my constant companion during my PhD studies, her patience, encouragement, love and partnership made the experience far more enjoyable than it might have been.

I am so lucky to be surrounded by such a kind, caring and warm family. My five wonderful sisters, Úna, Ciara, Fiona, Catriona and Áine, in different ways, inspired me to continue with my research. It is above all my parents who merit special acknowledgement. They have provided the greatest support and encouragement for all my work and I hope they will accept this book as a token of my appreciation. Therefore, it is with my deepest gratitude that I dedicate this book to my Mother and Father.

Sheffield

June 2013

Introduction

Voting allows the prisoner to feel part of a wider community, something incarceration takes away. It also allows the prisoner to vote for and against changes which may affect his/her time in custody and upon release. I do hope that our vote is not a wasted one – if we are valued enough to be asked to vote, then I hope our wants, needs and requests are listened to. Being in custody takes away a large part of a person's feeling of self-worth, being allowed to vote gives back some of that lost feeling. This in turn will make better citizens.

Gavin, Irish prisoner, serving life

There was nothing similar in other jurisdictions … It was one of those occasions when Ireland was shown to be progressive and doing something that nobody else in Europe was doing. We could defend our position because we hadn't taken the vote. We weren't fearful of going to the Court of Human Rights. It just struck me that we had an opportunity to give prisoners the vote. And the sky didn't fall down.

Dick Roche, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (2004–7), Republic of Ireland

On 24 May 2007, voters in the Republic of Ireland went to the polls. It was a historic general election for a number of reasons. The Taoiseach (prime minister), Bertie Ahern, repeated the achievement of the towering political figure of twentieth-century Ireland, Eamon de Valera, by being returned for a third term. The Green Party entered government for the first time, taking two cabinet positions. As a consequence of their disastrous result in the election, the Progressive Democrats, the party that had promised to ‘break the mould in Irish politics’, eventually dissolved. The only representative of the Socialist Party, Joe Higgins, almost universally considered to be one of the best orators of the previous Dáil (Lower House of Parliament), lost his seat. Amid the fog of election coverage, probably the most significant feature was virtually overlooked. It was the first time in Irish history that every eligible citizen had the opportunity to vote. In the 2007 general election, Irish prisoners, like their fellow citizens, went to the polls.

Prisoners could now exercise their franchise due to legislation introduced less than a year previously. The Irish government changed the law to allow all prisoners to vote, even after the Supreme Court had decided that such action was not required and despite a sometimes stifling concern on the part of politicians to avoid being seen as soft on crime or compassionate towards prisoners, for fear of losing electoral support. Significantly, the legislation was passed quietly, without the controversy that has accompanied similar initiatives in other jurisdictions.

The fact that prisoners could now vote was, with the exception of a few newspaper articles, neglected in both popular and academic analysis. This is perhaps unsurprising. As apart from penal reform and human rights groups, the fact that previously, a group of citizens – prisoners – could not vote, received little or no attention. In 2005, an independent think-tank, the Democracy Commission (Harris, 2005: 6) in its examination of the state of democracy in Ireland, recommended extending ‘the postal voting option to all registered voters, including prisoners’. Few other studies on Irish elections or politics mentioned, or considered the reasons behind, prisoners' exclusion from the franchise.

Prisoner enfranchisement remains one of the few contested electoral issues in twenty-first-century democracies. It is at the intersection of punishment and representative government. In a democratic polity, the deliberate denial of the right to vote to any section of the population has very serious implications, both symbolic, in terms of devaluing citizenship, and practical, in terms of affecting electoral outcomes. Conversely, the extension of the franchise is similarly emblematic of a political system's priorities and emphases. The debate about prisoner enfranchisement is significant because it gives us some insights into the objectives of imprisonment, society's conflicted attitude towards prisoners, the nature of democracy and the concept of citizenship.

This book is about prisoners and voting. It is the first comprehensive study of prisoners and the franchise in any jurisdiction. Using the Republic of Ireland as a case study, it analyses the experience of prisoner enfranchisement and locates it in an international context. While the empirical focus is on one jurisdiction, the issues raised have wider bearing, as many countries face dilemmas as to whether, or how, to include prisoners in civil society. Considering the extraordinary rise in imprisonment in many countries, especially in the United States, in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries, the demand for enfranchisement continues to grow, especially from prisoners and activists, creating a more pressing need to learn from jurisdictions that allow prisoners to vote. As prisoner enfranchisement increasingly becomes a subject of controversy, the debates, legislation, turnout and voting patterns in the Republic of Ireland can provide an example to other jurisdictions.

The Republic of Ireland is in the ‘unusual position of being influenced by European human rights norms as well as by the Anglo-American drive towards increased punitiveness’ (Griffin and O'Donnell, 2012: 611). In the case of prisoners and the franchise, it was the influence of European rather than Anglo-American standards that prevailed. The Republic of Ireland enfranchised prisoners, at a time when legislators in the United States and the United Kingdom have shown a marked reluctance to do so. In the same month that the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) enfranchised prisoners, the United Kingdom's Department for Constitutional Affairs (2006: Foreword) launched a consultation process with the statement that ‘[t]he government is firm in its belief that individuals who have committed an offence serious enough to warrant a term of imprisonment, should not be able to vote while in prison’. Four years later, during a debate in the UK parliament, the new Prime Minister, David Cameron was unequivocal. It would make him ‘physically ill even to contemplate’ giving votes to prisoners (Hansard, HC Debates, 3 November 2010, vol. 517, col. 921). In the United States, the leader of the Republicans in the Massachusetts Senate, Francis Marini, argued that the practice of allowing prisoners to vote ‘makes no sense … We incarcerate people and we take away their right to run their own lives and leave them with the ability to influence how we run our lives’ (cited in the Wall Street Journal, 1999: A26).

Ewald and Rottinghaus (2009: 18–19), in the first book on international developments in prisoner enfranchisement, argued that despite a number of publications and advocacy reports, the ‘study of disenfranchisement law in the international context remains far short’ of the goal of a comprehensive comparative analysis. There is a lack of data on basic topics such as how many prisoners vote. They concluded that, ‘in almost all cases, we still do not have even rudimentary histories of prisoner voting policies, despite the fact that close study of almost any country reveals that the rules have changed, sometimes quite profoundly’. In 2006, the rules changed profoundly in the Republic of Ireland, creating for the first time a fully inclusive electorate. This book contributes to the scholarship on comparative prisoner enfranchisement and our understanding of civic and political engagement among prisoners in Ireland and internationally.

In the course of their examination of active citizenship in Ireland, a government-appointed taskforce concluded that there was a ‘need for ongoing analysis and research on civic engagement’ (Taskforce on Active Citizenship, 2007c: 26). This book will enrich that analysis, especially as it examines a section of the population that has hitherto been neglected in studies on politics and civil society. However, the issues raised in this book will have resonance in the debates about enfranchisement outside the Republic of Ireland. While the book analyses the level of political participation among prisoners and explores opportunities for civic engagement, the study locates prisoners' right to vote in wider historical, social, political and civil rights contexts. It concludes that enfranchisement is one element, albeit an important one, within a wider mosaic of prisoners' rights and opportunities for participative citizenship. The Irish experience indicates that, even when prisoners are enfranchised, obstacles remain, both real and symbolic, to prisoners embracing citizenship fully.

The book begins with an analysis of the theoretical and legal arguments for and against the enfranchisement of citizens behind bars. The standpoints taken by different sides in the debate usually indicate their perspectives on democracy, punishment and the social construction of criminality. Chapter 1 outlines the historical development of ‘civic death’ statutes which underpin much of the legislation and arguments behind disenfranchisement. It reviews the reasoning of those in favour of disenfranchisement who make the case that prisoners (and sometimes ex-prisoners) have broken the social contract, put themselves outside the law voluntarily, and should be denied the opportunity to decide who will make the law. Opponents of disenfranchisement point to its arbitrary nature, criticise its lack of proportionality and emphasise the rehabilitative function of encouraging prisoners to engage in civil society through the electoral process. While considering both sides, this chapter concludes that allowing prisoners to maintain access to the franchise, along with other rights, conveys a real and symbolic message of inclusion. Enfranchisement encourages prisoners to preserve their connection with society by participating in citizenship activities inside prison and envisages a time post-imprisonment, when they can contribute more fully as citizens to society outside.

Chapter 2 reviews the debates on enfranchisement in a number of countries that allow prisoners to vote, including Australia, Israel, Canada and South Africa. As the debates are ongoing and because they have been particularly vigorous in the US and the UK, special attention is given to these jurisdictions. In the United Kingdom, politicians from both major parties have resisted enfranchising prisoners, despite a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) allowing for the enfranchisement of some prisoners. One politician from within the ruling Conservative Party urged the government to reject the judgment as it ‘gave rise to an ostensible conflict between the requirements of international law and British democracy’ (Rabb, 2011: 24). The matter was so serious and so central to British democratic traditions that the solution was simple. The UK should repudiate its obligations under international treaties (Rabb, 2011: xii), and therefore risk suspension from the Council of Europe. Disenfranchisement of both prisoners and ex-prisoners in the United States has engaged politicians, legal theorists, philosophers and penal reformers for decades. By 2012, over 5.8 million citizens were disqualified from voting due to a current or past felony conviction, one in every 40 adults (Uggen et al., 2012: 1). Due to the disproportionate incarceration of minorities, more African-American men were disenfranchised in 2010 than in 1870, the year the 15th amendment was ratified, which prohibited the enactment of laws that deny the right to vote on the basis of race (Alexander, 2010: 175). Felon and ex-felon disenfranchisement laws have removed millions from the voting register, tearing at the fabric of minority communities and casting doubt on the US desire to be seen as a beacon of liberal democracy.

Chapter 3 examines the Irish experience of prisoner enfranchisement. It begins by considering the involvement of prisoners in politics prior to and post-independence. It explores why, despite the prominence of prisoners and ex-prisoners in the development of the Irish State, the enhancement of prisoners' rights and penal reform have rarely been considered policy priorities. It concludes that, although politicians were keen to promote their prison past, they were less eager to allow their experience to inform their penal policy. Rather, they were happy to leave prison behind and wished to distinguish their activities from, and tended to ignore the plight of, those who remained incarcerated. The chapter concludes by examining the debates leading to the legislation that allowed prisoners to vote and finds that while enabling prisoners to vote was very significant, the quiet passing of the legislation made enfranchisement of prisoners in Ireland just as remarkable.

In 2007, Irish prisoners voted for the first time. Chapter 4 presents the results of a study on voting and political engagement among Irish prisoners. Research was undertaken in three prisons, and the first comprehensive survey of prisoners' views on voting and political engagement internationally found that