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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So you want to be a legislator?

So you want to get elected with minimal effort? New video shows that your best bet is to run for office in a prison-gerrymandered district.

by Leah Sakala, July 14, 2011

So you want to get elected with minimal effort? Your best bet may be to run for office in a district with very few actual residents, says a new video by Bruce Reilly, of Direct Action for Rights and Equality.

How? Move to a district with a large prison, make sure the local government counts incarcerated people as residents, campaign to win the support of the handful of actual residents, and voila! You’re in, thanks to prison-based gerrymandering.

Here’s how it works:

Related briefings:

  1. Rhode Island legislator boasts of prison-based gerrymandering +

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