Prisoners Right to Vote

I've joined some UK ex prisoners - Farah Damji and John Hirst - who are fighting for the right for prisoners to vote. John singlehandedly won a ruling in the European Court of Human Rights that the UK government has ignored. The court ruled that UK prisoners are being denied a basic human right.

Farah has posted an article about this here. We are getting attacked in the comments. Here is my response to the comments opposed to prisoners having the right to vote:

How are prisoners – many of whom will be released – supposed to reintegrate with society if society deprives them of their basic human rights? If prisoners are treated like animals, some of them will return to society and behave like animals, and society will ultimately pay a steep price. Isn’t the right to vote a way to encourage prisoners to participate in the lawful activity of society? It seems to me that disenfranchisement is more likely to turn prisoners into enemies of society.

Living with prisoners, I learnt that a lot of them did not have the advantages many of us had growing up. That doesn’t excuse them for their crimes, but it has led me to believe that some encouragement from society later in life would help them to become productive members of society.