Better Nation

Denying prisoners the vote: who benefits?

Jun 10

Posted by James in Crime, Elections, Holyrood, Westminster | 2 Comments

Why would any politician want to deny prisoners the vote? Is it purely because they think it plays well with the less liberal parts of the media (i.e. almost all of it)? Or might there be a better reason? There are all sorts of rationales for the use of prison in the justice system. Are any of them consistent with denying prisoners the franchise as well as their liberty?

1. Public safety. This is the most important one for me. If someone has grievously breached society’s proper moral codes – by which I mean typically premeditated or serious offences against the person – I support using prison to protect society. Why, at the top end of those offences, should the innocent public be exposed to the risk of a repeat offence? I prefer the risk that someone who might actually never offend again still doesn’t get out. You hopefully know the sort of offences I mean here.

So does denying prisoners a vote protect the public? Hardly. What risk is there to the public of further crime from prisoners simply voting? Essentially it’s the same as the threat posed to a mixed-sex married couple by their same-sex neighbours getting married, i.e. none. What’s more, it’s hard to see how they could change anything substantial electorally. There are just over 8,000 prisoners in Scottish jails. A little over 100 per constituency. If they all voted they’d make up 0.4% of the Scottish electorate. A poll I can’t find suggested prisoners would be more likely to vote BNP than the rest of us – and it may not be surprising to turn it on its head and say that BNP voters are more likely to commit crimes – but that’s not a reason to prevent all prisoners voting.

2. Rehabilitation. This is an area where the theory and practice of imprisonment seem miles apart, but can barring prisoners from voting really help them turn their lives around, prepare them for life outside, and reduce reoffending? Actually, the evidence is quite the opposite. It doesn’t seem realistic to say allowing prisoners a vote would have a major impact, but it might have some.

3. Deterrence/retribution. Shall we agree that even the most hardened political hack wouldn’t be put off from committing a crime because of the loss of the franchise? It’s hardly an enormous punishment when you’ve already been deprived of your liberty.

4. Restitution. Nothing here either (cf community services, repayment of stolen money). No victim sees any practical benefit from an offender being denied a ballot.

The best the no-vote side are left with (at Holyrood this means the SNP, Labour and the Tories), as far as I can see, is a reference to some abstract moral principle – that prisoners must forgo any contribution to deciding society’s future, and that when they’ve “paid their debt” they can take part again, irrespective of the absence of any practical benefit to society. It’s precisely the kind of vague and unfalsifiable pseudo-moral hand-waving and hand-wringing certain sections of the media love.

So, conversely, why should we let them vote? First, the minor rehabilitation effects noted above. Many repeat offenders already feel alienated from society, disenfranchised in more ways than one. Do we really want to tell people, especially those who will be released, that society thinks their views are irrelevant? I’d like to believe that allowing prisoners to vote might encourage politicians to consider their views on prison conditions, but the small number of these potential voters (versus the influence of the populist press) makes that unlikely.

Above all, though, we’re meant to be a democracy. If we start going down this road we end up with the approach some American states take, whereby felons are barred from voting forever. We live in a discriminatory society, with a justice system more inclined to prosecute and imprison the poor or protesters than so-called “white collar criminals”, and preventing prisoners from having a say extends this discrimination further for no real benefit. Democracies let their citizens vote, not just the approved subset of the population. It shouldn’t take the European courts to make our governments honour this principle.

In praise of separatism

Jun 7

Posted by James in Constitution | 14 Comments

Separatism is a dirty word, apparently. The No campaign use it all the time about those of us who support independence, just as non-nationalists for independence constantly get called nationalists by them too. Aside from partisan naming of US legislation, the independence referendum has been the site of perhaps the most intense linguistic and political battles I’ve ever seen.

I see why “separatism” gets used like that. Togetherness sounds warm and fuzzy. Let’s all have a big British cuddle. And what about your auntie in Bristol? Don’t you want to stay in the same country as her? Would you genuinely rather see a really big pair of scissors cut Scotland adrift, to float off into North Atlantic isolation? It’s a fine bit of rhetoric, even though a fair proportion of those same people would quite happily see us be much less Together with our European friends and family.

And socially, I agree. I’m part English, with countless friends and family members there. And when I say England already feels like a foreign country, for me that’s a compliment, or at least neutral. The Netherlands or Greece or America feel like foreign countries too, and (not being a ‘kipper or a near-‘kipper), I like going there and I like the feeling of being abroad. Differences are sexy.

But then I look at the institutions of the British state: the endless crown to symbolise the people’s powerlessness, the House of Lords to remind us that the gentry should inherit their right to legislate (and an arbitrary subset of bishops too), the corrupt House of Commons with an electoral system designed to preserve the rule of two grim neoliberal parties, the City with its unbalancing greed and unrestrainable influence, and the pound sterling, managed to suit the City rather than the people. I see an uncodified constitution which offers the public no clarity, no protection, and no real democracy, and I see some unpleasant international entanglements too – notably NATO.

I don’t want anything to do with any of them. Not a jot. I may not be a nationalist, but I am a constitutional separatist. I want to be separated from these institutions entirely. I’d love to see my friends in England find a way to make a break from those institutions too (as brilliantly set out here on sparkling blog A Thousand Flowers). But they don’t seem to be making much progress, and I don’t want to wait another thousand years for reform or revolution to fix what’s wrong with the British state. I’d rather Scotland had a chance, nothing more than that, to be a progressive beacon on a hill to inspire the rUK left.

In short, therefore, although I am a signatory to the Business for Scotland pledge (being in business and in favour of independence), I strongly disagree with this post on their site. It’s a small-c conservative position, as one might expect from a business organisation. What we’re offered by the SNP isn’t very inspiring, but if separation from all the institutions of the British state had indeed been on the ballot next year, that might just have lit a spark.

What is The Question?

May 31

Posted by Aidan in Constitution, Holyrood | 4 Comments

As I prepare for the final exam of my degree I can hear the voices of my high school English and Modern Studies teachers echoing through my head from the distant past: “remember to answer the question”. Physics and Computing were a bit more straightforward to approach and my chances at Higher Maths had been slightly scuppered by my teacher deciding to go off and manage Berwick Rangers. Alongside not really getting to grips with it, having scraped a 2 in Standard Grade. Mostly the latter if I’m entirely honest. Anyway.

Which isn’t to say they were demanding a simple “yes” or “no”, one of the skills of those kind of exams is to figure out what the question is really asking. In those cases it’s normally prompting at a quick explanation of the issues and then some argument about them. Seems pretty straightforward from a relaxed perspective but, hyped up on a mix of Irn Bru, Roxette and the prospect of getting out of small town Midlothian for the ~~bright lights~~ dark clubs of Glasgow and University figuring out what the question meant in the few minutes available wasn’t always the easier task.

For the referendum, of course, we know the question ahead of time: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

The answers are more Standard Grade multi-guess, we can pick Yes or No and that’s it. No hour to write a justification, just one of two boxes.

That doesn’t mean that it’s not worth considering what the question is actually asking though. You can choose to interpret it a number of ways.

You could, for instance, choose to to interpret it as asking if it means you prefer David Cameron or Alex Salmond to lead the country. I’m not sure that stands up but it’s how the SNP part of Yes sometimes presents itself.

You could also choose to interpret it as asking if you’d prefer Patrick Harvie and Alison Johnstone to either Alex Salmond or David Cameron as the Green part of Yes sometimes presents itself. That stands up even less.

Then there’s interpreting the question as asking if you’d rather the sky fell in and we were given nothing but sackcloth to wear. Not that likely really.

Me? I think the question should be interpreted as asking “Will independence maximise the political freedom of Scottish people in determining their own future?”

Even then that’s a more complicated question than it appears. On an initial glance it’s tempting to answer Yes because smaller political units mean more freedom. Don’t they? Well.. no. Not always. Otherwise what’s the point of government at all? Some times pooling sovereignty with others increases the number of things you can do, provided you get collective agreement to do them. This is something which arguments for withdrawing from the Union but not the European Union implicitly accept, as does the proposal for a currency union post-independence.

There’s obviously some freedoms to be gained from independence, but there would be trade offs as well. The question is really about the balance between those two.

To rephrase the question as a more open ended “please discuss”, it could be framed as “what policy decisions would be opened up and which closed off by independence?”

That’s a question I’d like to see answers to from both sides. I’ve given it some thought and I think I know what the answers are but you never know, I could be wrong.

Scottish politics’ Old Firm

May 30

Posted by Dom in Activism, Democracy, Environment, Equality, Governance, Local government, Parties, Society | Comments off

A few things have happened to me in the last few weeks which have reminded me of the importance of community to every aspect of our lives, and how this can be a wonderful thing.

Last Sunday I joined tens of thousands of other Hibs fans at the Scottish Cup Final in Glasgow. To see half the stadium singing Sunshine on Leith – a crowd made up of people who you recognised from bars and shops and the local swimming pool – underlined what a powerful thing community can be. Hibs went down 3-0 to a Celtic side with a global fanbase and several times more money composed of players from across the globe. A defeat, but one which cemented the feeling that Leith is a very special place with a very specific identity and community.

A few days later came another defeat dished out by the big boys, but this time it was Edinburgh and not Glasgow putting an end to a long and hard fought campaign. The City of Edinburgh council’s Labour/SNP administration made the decision to sell the local fun pool to a private developer instead of the preferred community option that it should be taken over by a community organisation and run on a non-profit basis with a public subsidy. The council have opted to sell it to a property developer with plans for a generic indoor play zone, despite the area already having indoor play facilities.

Now, to return to the question of Hibernian FC, it has a fine tradition of producing footballers who are then purchased for apparently irresistible money by Glasgow teams, the rationale being that the payoff is too good to refuse and that it will help the team build and move on in the long term.

As long as I have been a supporter of Hibernian FC this has demonstrably failed to happen, and I am worried that the same will be true of the Leith Waterworld saga. Were that one million pounds ploughed directly back into the local area it would be welcome, but it won’t be. That one million pounds could cover the whole of Leith in safe cycle and walking projects to keep kids fit, or it could be used for community startups or form the basis of a cooperative energy company which would more or less print money for the community to reinvest. Hell, it could even pay for a few metres of the tram line down Leith Walk, which we are in far greater need of than the poverty-stricken residents of Edinburgh Airport are (on this note it is also worth pointing out the council masterplan to develop the greenbelt land around the tram line by the airport when we have a huge number of brownfield sites which are either underdeveloped, underused or contain housing so bad it should probably be torn down anyway).

Leith is not a suburb of Edinburgh – it is a cosmopolitan place in its own right full of wonderful people. We have been let down by decision makers who do not know what the needs and desires of the local community are, in a failure of both democracy and common sense. The decision has cemented people’s dissatisfaction with structures of governance which view our assets as belonging to the city chambers and not to the people of our communities. We may not to be able to afford Leigh Griffiths, but we can definitely afford to invest in our collective resources.

Tags: Leith Waterworld

Higher education can’t be fixed at 19

May 30

Posted by James in Education, Holyrood, Westminster | 5 Comments

The Scotsman’s front page declares “Tuition fee axe ‘still favouring the rich’“, a classic instance of the headline not being stood up by the story. To be fair, the headline online is the much more accurate “Scottish universities remain elitist“.

The supporting piece, by Sheila Riddell from Edinburgh University, argues that the proportion of working-class students at Scotland’s ancient universities has declined from 21% in 2003 to 19% now.

Attributing this change to the abolition of tuition fees, as the frothing front-page headline at least seeks to do, is evidentially problematic to say the least, given that rebranded tuition fees were scrapped in 2008, precisely halfway through that decade.

Simultaneously, and more compellingly, the Guardian reports on survey data from England which looked at precisely the most important group: 11-16 year-olds in state schools.

Amongst those who say they’re unlikely to go to university, 41% say they’re not bright enough (something which, it should be noted, never seems to deter the privately-educated and will certainly not be true for many in that group) but 57% cite the cost as the deterrent. The headline on this? The diametrically opposed “University fees biggest barrier to wider access, research finds“.

It is difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions from this data because there’s no control, no parallel Scotland which didn’t abolish tuition fees in 2008, no parallel England where the Lib Dems kept their promises (that one’s even harder to imagine).

Only 19% of students at the ancient universities are from working class backgrounds this year, sure, which is very poor: but what proportion would have been if every student had to pay £9000 per year?

Leaving aside my ideological preference for education to be based on academic merit rather than ability to pay, though, it still seems likely that tuition fees will be less off-putting to those for whom money is no object. It also remains the case that tuition is of course only one cost associated with higher education, which is why previous generations of students (notably including those Labour, Tory and Lib Dem politicians who introduced or hiked tuition fees) had the benefit of a system of grants, now largely gone. As Riddell notes, the SNP administration to its credit is also introducing (reintroducing?) funding in bursaries and loans of up to £7250 for students from poorer backgrounds from the autumn of this year. That will surely help.

However, the problems with unequal intake don’t start when school leavers are considering applying to university. The inequalities in our education system start right at the beginning, and are anchored in a secondary system divided between the private and the state-run. Means-tested grants, ending fees: these are good measures, but they are merely tinkering. Unless we start phasing out private schools (or otherwise bringing the state sector up to their standards), we will continue to see grossly unequal intakes to universities.

It’s not just idealism at work here: the current arrangement is also bad capitalism. The interests of business as well as society would be better served by the brightest making it to university, irrespective of their parents’ background. It’s not time for fees to come back and entrench the divide. It’s time for radical change to an educational system that continues to confirm entrenched privilege, generation after generation, through school, into university, and on throughout life.

Disclaimer: I went to a private school and to St Andrews (above) and am therefore part of the problem.

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