Not before time, the government is finally to abide by the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, and lift the blanket ban on votes for prisoners that has been in place since 1870.
The Electoral Commission has already been thinking about the practical details of implementing this decision, which won't necessarily be straightforward. But I really don't have a problem with the principle behind the Court's ruling.
Imprisonment isn't just about punishment. It's about three things: keeping the public safe from people like serial killers and rapists who are serious dangers to life and limb; depriving people of their liberty as a penalty for the wrong they have done; and preparing them to join society again when they have completed their time in jail. Too often, it seems to me, we concentrate on the second of these at the expense of the third.
And deprivation of liberty doesn't mean denial of all rights. I did once meet a cab driver who was keen to persuade me of the merits of his view that prisoners should be kept merely as living stores of spare parts for surgery, but I suspect that's a bridge too far for most people.
The question, therefore, is not whether prisoners have rights, but which rights they should have, and which prisoners should be entitled to the right to cast a vote in elections, and which should not.
28 other European countries give prisoners the right to vote, as do two Australian and two American states. I'm not aware that the Dante's Inferno being foretold by those who oppose votes for prisoners has actually come to pass in those countries. The practicalities will naturally take some working out, but the principle is the right one.
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