Inmates belong in prison, not polling booths

When you are behind bars, you should only be behind bars, not in a polling booth. It is completely asinine to think we would allow deviants of the law to have a say in the representation of our country’s government and the formation of new laws.

When you think of an anarchist, what do you picture? I, for one, do not envision an individual lining up, ready to cast their vote for who will represent them for the next four years.

I think of a criminal: one who has no respect for current laws or future ones.

According to Public Safety Canada, statistics show that in the first year after being released, individuals are 44 per cent likely to reoffend.

If 44 per cent reoffend after serving time in prison, which is supposed to “rehabilitate” individuals, would you really want this cohort to have the right to vote?

I for one, would not. Even though only 44 per cent of them reoffend within the first year after release, 99.9 per cent of them have broken the law.

Prison is a place where their rights, not their dignity, should be removed in an order to teach them a lesson to respect and value the freedom and opportunities this nation has to offer.

Now, what about the voting age? To live eighteen years within your native country without having the right to vote seems a little extensive if voting is deemed such a fundamental right, is it not?

Well, it is in place to prevent irresponsible youth from casting uneducated votes.

Therefore, this concept of limiting voting to individuals based on responsibility should apply in correlation to those incarcerated people as well.

They were irresponsible to not follow the law and are now paying the price by serving time in jail.

This means that due to their irresponsibility, they too should not have the right to vote.

This concept would ensure that voting rights are limited to those who have a respect for the law and are responsible enough to cast a vote as to who the next leader of Canada will be.

On one side of the argument, many believe that giving these incarcerated criminals a second chance would help benefit them in the rehabilitation process by making them feel as though they are included in a community.

However, were they not already part of a community?

In many areas, the police’s slogan is to protect and serve the community, which is to enforce the law.

Now, these persons who break these laws go against that ideology and in some way, they put the community in danger.

If they have already been part of a community and put said community in harms way, why would giving them the opportunity to vote in jail magically fix this when they have already had the right to vote and that sense of community? Most likely, it won’t.

It is the laws established that help Canadians uphold individual rights and to go against those laws is to go against your very own Canadian rights.

Ultimately, giving incarcerated law breakers the right to vote is a destructing ideology which would lead to a path of anarchist legal and political decisions.