For every thing a purpose redders.

Arjay: "David by taking them off the role for the grand cost of $2.75 ea,at least we the honest people are voicing our disapproval."

I thought we were voicing our disapproval by sending them to prison or making them serve community service? I can just imagine the average inmate saying "Sure they lock me up, but stopping me from voting really hurts!"

I think some people here are confusing voting with going to a party. Voting is a duty, not an entertainment.

This is a waste of time, effort and resources.

Debra, Thank you for calling those inside "prisoners" - rather than "criminals". Most are just people who couldn't or wouldn't pay fines or afford proper defence. They just make silly mistakes and often do things that those who whine the loudest have done and been lucky to get away with, particularly in relation to car accidents and temper control.
The dedicated criminals are few and far between.
Prisons are highly successful universities of crime. They can ruin the lives of persons who are not dedicated criminals and they fail dismally as places of rehabilitation, and fail even more as the means of deterring or preventing crime.
If you seriously want to rehabilitate people, teach them why we vote- why we have law. Citizenship education - while you have their attention - guide them. Instill a sense of duty. Get them to vote. First steps to proper, responsible citzenship. Empower them.
People can learn some nasty stuff inside. They generally learn nothing else except resentment. Their self-esteem is usually destroyed as a control measure.
A few yarns presented in an informal way about the old Greek dilemas and why the rule of law is a better way would be a start. There is a lot of very kind people with huge potential inside who deserve to vote. Just as there are a lot of criminals outside who deserve their come-uppance.
(I spent a brief period inside a long time ago - not enough to qualify me to comment with any great expertise. Nonetheless, it was an interesting learning experience. I have been in the watch house a few times too - heard some heart-wrenching tales about black deaths and the treatment of prisoners. The worst thing that happened to me was when I was being given a hair cut a prison guard got me in a head lock and was about to cut my throat with a pair of sissors when a guy doing ten years pulled him off me. He lost his privileges).
Let them vote - you're only a wrong choice away from prisoner status.

Let them vote too. Who knows what can happens to you. In a blog, http://cracker.com.au/viewthread.aspx?threadid=85942&categoryid=11131 published on the net by me I describe how I, a regular train commuter, once lost my ticket inside a station and after a series of events, was detained apparently illegally inside a police station for over six hours. I am advised that legal aid will deny me assistance as the matter is outside their guidelines I was ultimately accused of being unable to produce a ticket.

My indigence, demographic, gender identity and lifestyle/occupation I submit led to me receiving a harsher treatment than say someone in a suit in the morning from a better area would get.

In societies like ours, the justice you often get is the justice you can afford to pay for. Many thousands of cases of what legal aid calls minor are denied help for representation even though there are indigent defendants. Try however suggesting to the court that you didn't get legal aid ipso facto the matter is trivial and well, you know.

We have little armies of lawyers running around representing foreign persons over immigration and other things at no cost out of their own sense of goodness, but thousands of times Australians also suffer injustices because often the justice you get is the justice you can afford to pay for. Or some people get harsher outcomes because of their non-conforming lifestyle/occupation, recreation, demographic etc.

Justice is blind....ha ha!

Debra, it was very naughty of you to call those inside “prisoners” instead of what they are “criminals.” Most incarcerated people are hardly just people who had a bit of a brush with the law. With prison populations reaching bursting point, judges are unlikely to jail anybody unless their offence is serious.

Dedicated criminals may be few and far between. But their population proportion is growing and the amount of damage that they do to our society is staggering.

US law enforcement tactics have become much more effective since “zero tolerance” policies have been instituted. There is a recognition by criminologists that the best way to control criminal behaviour (outside of a rational immigration policy) is to target that very small proportion of hardened criminals and simply keep them locked up for as long as possible on any legal pretext.

The idea that serious criminals can be rehabilitated by teaching them right from wrong, or instilling a sense of duty, is dancing with the fairies stuff. One of their problems is that they have too much self esteem. A car thief would rather steal cars for a living than work as a cleaner because his overblown sense of self worth rejects any honest work that he considers beneath him. Such men bash their wives and girlfriends because to have a female argue with them is unacceptable to their pumped up but fragile male ego.

Both prisons and armies use the destruction of personal self esteem as more than just a control measure. The idea is to stop prisoners and recruits from thinking entirely as selfish individuals and to make them think in terms of group identity. For armies, it is to make recruits understand that their very lives are not as important as the survival of the group. For prisoners, it is to make them understand that they are not the centre of the universe and that they must limit their selfish behaviour and start thinking about getting on with other people.

Don’t let them vote. You are hardly a choice away from prisoner status.

Red,

Interestingly, and this is widely unknown, the zero tolerance schemes so popular in ht eUS are not actually that much more effective (if at all), unless the society also implements zero tolerance on police misuse / abuse of power at the same time. It is an obvious correlation between the willingness of people to obey societies laws - and whether the people tasked with enforcing compliance with those laws are also held to obey them.

I do support zero tolerance in a way, people should be given massive sentences for rape / murder / child molestation etc (eg 50+ years), so that when they are caught, they are very unlikely to offend ever again.

However I believe that short term prisoners, like those on remand, first offenders (minor) and fine defaulters etc. should still be entitled to vote. Basically any person that will be released during the next Parliamentary term, and will therefore be in the position where they have to deal with the result of the election.