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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Boston Globe profiles Prisoners of the Census project

by Peter Wagner, September 27, 2004

The Census counts prisoners as residents of the towns where they're incarcerated. One crusading lawyer from Northampton thinks this little clerical matter is a big problem for American democracy.

Drake Bennett has written an excellent profile of the Census issue in the Boston Sunday Globe Ideas section. The piece ties together the harm to democracy in both urban and rural communities from the Census Bureau’s practice of counting prisoners as residents of the prison town and makes all of the necessary connections to larger issues.

As the Boston Globe article may disappear over time, I’ve permanently archived it on the Prison Policy Initiative website:

Head count: The Census counts prisoners as residents of the towns where they’re incarcerated. One crusading lawyer from Northampton thinks this little clerical matter is a big problem for American democracy.

Related briefings:

  1. Boston Globe explores prison gerrymandering in Mass. +
  2. Boston Workers Alliance Takes a Stand Against Prison-Based Gerrymandering +
  3. Valley Advocate profiles our work +

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