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.

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—Peter Wagner, Executive DirectorDonate

Upstate New York radio asks: Are state prisoners local residents?

by Peter Wagner, March 8, 2004

David Sommerstein has a great piece on North Country Public Radio Prisoners: North Country Residents?. The piece was aired on March 5, the morning of Peter Wagner’s presentation at the Census Bureau symposium and discusses our Feb 16 Fact of the Week contrasting Franklin County’s exclusion of the prisoner population with St. Lawrence County’s decision to include the prison population to shore up underpopulated Republican districts in the county legislature.

You can listen to the program at the above link, or read a transcript we created.

Related briefings:

  1. Benefits to New York State’s upstate (and downstate) residents +
  2. North Country Public Radio identifies the biggest impact of end to prison-based gerrymandering +
  3. David Skolnick asks, “Are prisoners Youngstown residents?” +

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