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Yep. This. And also it's a "better to punish a hundred people who don't deserve it than to decline to punish someone who does" move.
Framing voting rights for the imprisoned as being about the Boston marathon bomber is a way of NOT framing it as being about redemption, about social bonds, about reintegration into society.
"Should someone who is going to be paroled in three months at the age of 23 be able to cast the first vote of his life a few weeks before he's released" is a more interesting question than the marathon bomber question, and a more representative one.
And the question of the soon-to-be-paroled guy is a BETTER question, because it's actually engaged with the core reasons that allowing people to vote while incarcerated is both the decent thing to do and the smart thing to do.
Like I said yesterday, I agree with Bernie that voting should be treated as inalienable right. But if you're not quite ready to go that far, the proper place to begin in considering the question isn't Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
