16th June 2026
De Facto Disenfranchisement, Carceral Socialization, Social Exclusion? Exploring Low Turnout of Enfranchised Prisoners in Spain.
Speaker: Manuel Maroto, Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain.
Chair: Milena Tripkovic, University of Edinburgh.
Abstract: The penalty of deprivation of the right to vote was abolished in Spain with the introduction of a new Criminal Code in 1995. This reform was passed without substantial parliamentary debate and did not spark significant political or social discussion in the following decades. Today, voting in Spanish prisons remains a marginal phenomenon. According to the limited statistics available, voter turnout among prisoners in Spain is strikingly low. As studies conducted in other countries have also concluded, the causes appear to be multifaceted; in this presentation, I will explore some of them.
First, there was little practical adaptation within the prison and judicial systems after Spanish prisoners were granted the right to vote, and some evidence suggests that bureaucratic and ideological inertia has persisted, discouraging prisoner voting over the years. I will examine the persistence of de facto disenfranchisement through bureaucratic and informational barriers, as well as the prison administration’s failure to minimally promote voting and political engagement. Second, I will address the extent to which carceral socialisation itself leads to political alienation and electoral abstention, and some of the specific mechanisms through which this occurs. Third, I will discuss whether sociodemographic factors may be the primary determinant, given that the prison population is typically drawn from disadvantaged social groups that already exhibit low turnout rates. These hypotheses will be contrasted with the findings of ninety interviews conducted with prisoners in the Madrid region in 2023.
Manuel Maroto is a professor of criminal law and criminology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain and is currently a Visiting researcher at Edinburgh Law School. His research focuses on some of the ways in which political participation and the criminal justice system intersect.