ABSTRACT
The topic of prisoner disenfranchisement is one that should concern us all – not just because we all have an interest in the processes and outcomes of punishment carried out (putatively) in our name or on our behalf, but also because we all have an interest in how the borders between inclusion in and exclusion from the polity are policed and patrolled. These are fundamental questions for any state that claims to be democratic and to derive its legitimacy from the will of the people expressed through elections. To be placed beyond the border of inclusion and exclusion is, ipso facto, to be denied representation and to be silenced in democratic dialogue about the direction of that polity or state. In such circumstances, those thus rendered voiceless – for so long as they are silenced – become mere objects on whom state power operates, rather than citizens with whom it engages, negotiates, and from whom, ultimately, it derives its right to govern (see Behan, Chapter 4).
