Model legislation page

We've updated our legislation page and added model legislation for both the interim and residence restoration strategies.

by Peter Wagner, January 28, 2010

We recently updated our list of legislative efforts to end prison-based gerrymandering, and drafted two different types of model legislation. One model creates a system for restoring the state’s incarcerated population to its correct location, and the second is an interim strategy to prevent districts with prisons from using the prison population to enhance their influence beyond their numbers.

Statewide Coalition Kicks Off Campaign to End Prison-Based Gerrymandering

by Demos, January 27, 2010

Senator Eric T. Schneiderman Will Introduce Bill to Change How New York Uses Census Prisoner Counts

New York, NY–Community groups and advocates from across New York will rally on the steps of City Hall Thursday in support of new legislation to end the undemocratic system of prison-based gerrymandering. Supporters will be joined by Senator Schneiderman to seek an amendment to the State Election Law regarding how incarcerated individuals are counted for the purposes of legislative districting.

This is a critical step in a major statewide effort to pass legislation that will count prisoners as residents of their home counties, rather than as residents of the counties in which they are incarcerated. The current system for counting people in prison drastically inflates populations in some communities, while diluting the political representation of the home communities and violating the democratic principle of “one person, one vote.”

Restoring the democratic right of representation to all New York communities is especially urgent now that the 2010 Census is underway and new legislative districts will be drawn in 2012.

WHO: Community groups and advocates, Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and Elected Officials; Steven Carbo from leading coalition member Demos, a national policy center, will moderate.

WHEN: Thursday, January 28, 2010 – 10:00am

WHERE: New York City Hall – Steps

WBAI interview on NY’s Prison Census Adjustment Act

NY Senator Eric Schneiderman and I discuss the Prison Census Adjustment Act pending in the state legislature on WBAI's On the Count with Eddie Ellis.

by Peter Wagner, January 19, 2010

On Saturday, New York Senator Eric Schneiderman and I discussed the Prison Census Adjustment Act pending in the state legislature on WBAI’s On the Count The Prison & Criminal Justice Report with Eddie Ellis. You can listen to the 26 minute program online.

Utica paper: Don’t count prisoners as constituents

Editorial: It is simply inane that the 6,000-plus prison inmates at ... four prisons are factored into population totals for county legislative districts.

by Peter Wagner, January 7, 2010

Utica Observer-Dispatch (Utica, NY)
Jan 7, 2010

AT ISSUE: Using inmates to determine county’s legislative districts is wrong.

It is simply inane that the 6,000-plus prison inmates at Oneida County’s four prisons are factored into population totals for county legislative districts.

Should prisoners count when drawing legislative districts?

Utica, New York, paper asks: Should prisoners count when drawing legislative districts? Everyone quoted agrees: No.

by Peter Wagner, January 2, 2010

Jennifer Fusco of Oneida County’s Utica Observer-Dispatch in upstate New York writes about our report on prison-based gerrymandering in rural New York counties in Should prisoners count when drawing legislative districts?

The Census Bureau counts incarcerated people as residents of the prisons, not of their home addresses, and that creates a big problem for legislative redistricting.

In two [PDF] of Oneida County’s 29 county legislative districts, a third or more of the population is not local residents but incarcerated people from elsewhere in the state. This gives every group of 62-67 people in the prison districts as much political influence in the county as 100 people elsewhere in the county.

Bills are pending in the legislature to fix the Census Bureau’s prison miscount state-wide, and 13 New York Counties already reject the flawed Census counts. [PDF]

According to the article, the County Executive, the county’s Majority Leader (who himself represents a prison district), and a second legislator each said they were unaware that New York State law gives counties the discretion to choose the population base used for redistricting and that they could choose to draw districts without the prison populations. Each supported the idea of correcting the Census, and framed the issue as a question of fair and equal representation.

Ms. Fusco also interviewed the Census Bureau’s Deputy Regional Director, Bruce Kaminski. He explained why the Census Bureau counts incarcerated people as residents of the prison, but:

When asked whether it’s fair to districts that have prisons compared with those that don’t, he wouldn’t say.

“We do not make that determination whether it’s fair or unfair,” he said.

Radio interviews

by Peter Wagner, December 31, 2009

On Wednesday, Hugh Hamilton of WBAI NYC’s TalkBack! interviewed Demos’ Brenda Wright about prison-based gerrymandering in New York State. The 30 minute segment starts about 30 minutes in to the audio file. Among other topics, Brenda discusses why New York State law says that incarceration does not change a residence and the 13 rural counties that reject the Census Bureau’s prison count when drawing their own district lines.

This morning, Celeste Headlee interviewed Dodge County (Wisconsin) Supervisor Jim Layman and myself on the national morning news program The Take Away. Half of Jim Layman’s county legislative district is incarcerated, and he says the Census is wrong to count incarcerated people from other parts of the state in his district. I discussed the national, state and local efforts to eliminate prison based gerrymandering. The 6 minute segment starts about 22 minutes in to the file.

News Roundup

by Peter Wagner, December 28, 2009

A number of new articles and resources about prison-based gerrymandering were posted over the long holiday weekend.

The Brennan Center’s Justin Levitt gave a speech to the International Municipal Lawyers’ Association in Columbia, SC on alternative voting systems and the count of incarcerated persons in redistricting. The text of Justin Levitt’s talk is on the Brennan Center website.

Black leaders urge census to change how it counts inmates

by Peter Wagner, December 17, 2009

The Washington Post reports:

A coalition of African American leaders concerned about minorities being undercounted in the 2010 Census called Wednesday for inmates at federal and state prisons to be tallied in their home communities instead of the towns where they are incarcerated.

National Urban League CEO Marc Morial
at National Press Club.
Photo: Michael Connor/Washington Times

Commerce Department Secretary Gary Locke met with a dozen African-American leaders including the National Urban League, the NAACP, and the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. At a press conference afterwards, Marc H. Morial, president of the National Urban League and chairman of a census advisory committee, raised prison-based gerrymandering as one of the issues of Census Bureau policy affecting African-Americans that should be changed.

He said that crediting incarcerated people to the prison where they are incarcerated but do not legally reside disorts fair representation:

Noting that about 1.2 million of the nation’s 40 million African Americans are in prison, Morial said, “What we have in the prison population issue is a built-in undercount.”

Morial and about a dozen other black leaders brought up the prison count during a meeting with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to discuss how to make the census more accurate, a perennial problem.

See: Black leaders urge census to change how it counts inmates by Carol Morello, Washington Post and Blacks urge more efforts to improve census count by Hope Yen, Associated Press. Both articles were on December 17, 2009.

Annual appeal

by Peter Wagner, December 16, 2009

The 2010 Census is almost here, and the Prison Policy Initiative needs your support.

The financial and moral support of the people who read this blog has helped to propel the once obscure issue of prison-based gerrymandering into the national consciousness.

Despite our progress over the last 7 years, the Census will again be counting incarcerated people as residents of the prison towns, shifting political power to legislative districts that contain prisons.

If we act fast, short-term solutions are still possible. We are working with states, counties, and redistricting experts to develop ways that they can adjust the Census Bureau’s prison count prior to redistricting and thereby minimize the negative effects of the prison miscount.

Interest in prison-based gerrymandering is rising quickly. In the months ahead, we’ll be harnessing the national excitement around the 2010 Census to educate the nation about the issue of prison-based gerrymandering and to encourage the Census Bureau to commit to changing how incarcerated people are counted in the future.

We need your continued support to do this. We’ve received some generous foundation support in the last few months that has enabled us to expand our staff, and we need your help to raise the last of the funds we need for our final push.

The Prison Policy Initiative is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, so gifts can be tax-deductible. We can accept checks to Prison Policy Initiative PO Box 127 Northampton MA 01061 or with a credit card via Network for Good.

The Census is almost here. The time to shape the debate around the 2010 Census is now. If you can again help support our work, please do so today.

Thank you!

The Vicious Cycle of the Census

Matt Kelley on Change.org puts the prison miscount in the context of why an accurate Census matters to urban communities.

by Peter Wagner, December 16, 2009

Matt Kelley puts prison-based gerrymandering in the context of why an accurate Census matters to urban communities on Change.org:

The 2010 U.S. Census is about to hit full swing, and it’s critical that we commit to counting everyone.

The most directly pertinent census issue to the criminal justice system is the colossal mistake of counting prisoners where they’re incarcerated instead of where they’re from.

As Elena Lavarreda wrote recently in an excellent piece on change.org, counting prisoners in rural districts gives undue political influence to farmlands while robbing power from poor inner-city populations. This is a critical issue and it needs to be addressed.

But there’s a broader issue, too. Not only will poor urban communities be counted without their prisoners, they’ll also be missing more than a million people the census classifies as Hard to Count. This includes people with no fixed address, or people who stay in a public housing unit but aren’t on the lease. These are people who might not be around on the day the count happens, or might be suspicious of a guy from the government coming to count them. Every person the census misses means lost services for the community and exacerbates the cycle of poverty.

– The Vicious Cycle of the Census.