Set to provoke debate on prisoners’ voting rights

A video created by a student at the University of Sheffield is stirring up debate on the controversial issue of whether prisoners should be given the right to vote. The video, entitled Should prisoners in the UK be allowed to vote? was created by third year Philosophy student Rob Hughes with funding from the University's Sheffield Undergraduates Research Experience (SURE) scheme. Rob, 20, said: "The video is aimed at the people who have a gut reaction on this issue one way or another, but, when pressed, don't really know why. If even a single person walks away from the video with the feeling that there is more to be said and more to be understood about the issue, or that they're not sure where they stand anymore, then I will feel that the video was a success. "In some sense, that's why the video doesn't go into that much detail - I tried to build in a certain number of ways in which the viewer might argue against it. The aim was never to convince people of one thing or the other - it was very much just to get people talking, and to get people to challenge the beliefs they might not even realise they have. For me, that's what doing philosophy is all about." The video forms part of Democracy and Criminal Justice, a project between the University's Department of Philosophy, School of Law and Department of Politics exploring the ethical, legal and political issues in the criminal justice system.