Putting the state off-balance

by Peter Wagner, July 13, 2003

Sixty-five percent of New York State’s prisoners come from New York City. But even if the prisoner origins were not disproportionately concentrated in New York City, the geographic disparity would still be significant. One way of expressing the geographic disparity between the general New York State population and the prison population is with the idea of a population center.If everyone in New York State stood at their census address on a flat, weightless map of the state, the map would balance near Otisville in Sullivan County, just over the border from Orange. (See the red cross on the map).Ninety-two percent of New York State’s 71,466 prisoners are incarcerated in upstate prisons. The population center for the prisoners, on the other hand, is near Hamilton in Madison County over 100 miles to the north and west. (See the yellow cross on the map.)
Read more about prisoners and the census in New York