Help End Prison Gerrymandering Prison gerrymandering funnels political power away from urban communities to legislators who have prisons in their (often white, rural) districts. More than two decades ago, the Prison Policy Initiative put numbers on the problem and sparked the movement to end prison gerrymandering.

Can you help us continue the fight? Thank you.

—Peter Wagner, Executive DirectorDonate

Maryland has enacted legislation to end prison gerrymandering. It is one of ten states that will count incarcerated people at home for redistricting purposes in the 2020 redistricting cycle.

Maryland - Campaign Archive

Sections: Fact sheets; Report; Testimony; Press coverage & editorials

The U.S. Census Bureau counts incarcerated people where they are confined not where they are from. Using these counts to draw state and county legislative districts enhances the weight of a vote cast by people who live near prisons at the expense of everyone else in the state or county. Maryland passed a first-in the-nation law to correct that inequity.

The No Representation Without Population Act, introduced in the House of Delegates by Delegate Pena-Melnyk as HB496 and in the Senate by Senator Pugh as SB400, January 29, 2010 was signed by the Governor on April 13, 2010.

See the PPI/Demos press release: Maryland enacts law to count incarcerated people at their home addresses: First-in-nation law will improve fairness and accuracy of the Census data used for redistricting; or the ACLU/NAACP release: ACLU, NAACP Celebrate Passage of “Prisoners of the Census” Redistricting Legislation

The state released the adjusted population data on March 22, 2011, pursuant to the state regulations (Title 34, Subtitle 5), which detail the law's implementation.

June 2012 update: The No Representation Without Population Act was unsuccessfully challenged in federal court by the plaintiffs in Fletcher v. Lamone. In December 2011, a federal three-judge panel rejected the lawsuit. The plaintiffs appealed, but on June 25, 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's decision upholding the law. For more details and case documents, see our Fletcher v. Lamone page.

Fact sheets

Ending prison-based gerrymandering would aid the African-American vote in Maryland [PDF] by Prison Policy Initiative
States are Authorized to Adjust Census Data to End Prison-Based Gerrymandering, and Many Already Do [PDF] by Prison Policy Initiative and Demos

Reports

Importing Constituents: Incarcerated People and Political Clout in Maryland, by Peter Wagner and Avi Cummings, March 4, 2010 is our district-by-district analysis of how crediting Baltimore City’s incarcerated residents to remote districts distorts democracy and dilutes the votes of all voters in all other districts.
- Report
- Appendix: Maryland Incarceration Rates by County, 2002