ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses imprisonment as the negation of citizenship in relation to the loss of the right to vote. The issue of prisoners' right to vote has focused more attention on prisons and received much more attention than other aspects of imprisonment. Imprisonment both physically and symbolically constitutes a form of social exclusion, or even social death, as the inmate is physically separated from society, stripped of income and status and political power. The chapter considers whether condemning prisoners to civil death is appropriate in modern democratic societies. With the loss of voting rights, the prisoner experiences civil death, in addition to the numerous humiliations and deprivations. Denial of citizenship through disenfranchisement remains the most important practical and symbolic manifestation of civic death in the UK and in the US. The chequered history of the prisoners' voting rights campaign raises the question of why the restoration of the most fundamental emblem of citizenship has been so strongly resisted.
