California can still curtail prison-based gerrymandering
Prison Policy Initiative and Demos submit testimony and solutions to California's Citizens Redistricting Commission's prison-based gerrymandering problems.
by Aleks Kajstura, July 18, 2011
Friday, the Prison Policy Initiative and Dēmos presented testimony to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC) discussing prison-based gerrymandering and making recommendations on how the Citizens Redistricting
Commission (CRC) can take steps to minimize the impact of prison-based gerrymandering in drawing state legislative districts for California.
In past redistricting cycles, California chose to prioritize population equality so highly that it drew all legislative districts exactly the same size, rather than permitting a small population deviation among legislative districts as most states do. Ironically, without a fix to prison-based gerrymandering, California’s devotion to population equality in redistricting was futile. This problem is illustrated by a cluster of districts drawn after the 2000 Census in the Central Valley: 8.6% of the 30th Assembly district was incarcerated in state prisons, 5.7% of the 20th Congressional district was incarcerated in state prisons, and 4.3% of the 16th Senate district was incarcerated in state prisons. In each of these districts, every group of 91 to 94 people were given as much influence in Sacramento as 100 people from any other district that was not itself padded with large prison populations.
The testimony contains more examples with detailed solutions that are still implementable, even at this late stage of redistricting.
The files mentioned in the testimony can be downloaded here:
- California Advance Group Quarters Summary File
- Block equivalency file for Assembly districts near Kings County
- Block equivalency file for Congressional districts near Kings County
