Immigration prisons do not mean a Census windfall

An Associated Press story spreads confusion and fear about potential changes in how prisoners counted for redistricting purposes.

by Peter Wagner, June 1, 2010

The Associated Press is reporting that Census Bureau counts of detained immigrants may “bring money to the towns, cities and counties in Texas, Arizona, Washington and Georgia where the country’s biggest and newest facilities are located.”

That’s simply wrong, as is the fear that a recent change in how the Census Bureau publishes the prison counts will impact funding.

This story repeats some facts about why the participation in the Census is important, and then takes those facts to a flawed conclusion. The article incorrectly says that “[t]he payout can be hefty for small towns” and then seeks to back it up with this true but misleading sentence:

“Federal money being
distributed from the census averaged about $1,469 per person in fiscal
year 2008, according to the Brookings Institute.”

The Brookings Institute report is consistent with our previous research which shows that the fast majority of federal aid is block grants to states, primarily for Medicaid and highways. The $1,469 simply does not go to localities.

Even more troubling is the unnecessary fear that this story raises about new changes at the Census Bureau:

“This census brings a twist, though. For the first time, states have
the option of counting people in detention centers and prisons as
residents of their last address before they’re detained, worrying some
local lawmakers who say cities and counties that host detention
centers could lose money.”

This paragraph misstates both what the Census Bureau has agreed to do, and what it means. As Aleks Kajstura has explained, states and local governments have always had the option to adjust the Census Bureau’s population counts. In fact, more than 100 localities already reject the Census Bureau’s prison count when redistricting. By publishing the prison counts earlier, the Census Bureau will make this process easier. But if states want to follow Maryland and count people in prison at their home addresses, they need to collect and process that data themselves. The Census Bureau is not collecting or distributing home address data at all.

Government funding formulas are sophisticated attempts to match limited funds to the specific needs. School funds, for example, are distributed in large part by the number of children, and poverty funds, are distributed by various measures of poverty. All of these measures are too sophisticated to be fooled by prison counts, and no federal aid program is based on state or county redistricting data.

Closed prison can mean long-term harm to democracy in Oklahoma County

A large prison closed just after the 2010 Census was completed could harm democracy.

by Peter Wagner, June 1, 2010

The Associated Press is reporting that:

WATONGA, Okla. — This Blaine County city wants its criminals back.

Not back on the streets, but back in the private prison that until Thursday was Watonga’s biggest employer.

Now it’s empty.

For budgetary reasons, the state of Arizona recently decided not to renew the contract that placed 2,000 prisoners in the Oklahoma facility. The private company is looking for a new client, but for now, the 300 people who worked at the facility must transfer to other prisons or be out a job.

That effort has the mayor’s attention, but another problem is just below the surface: the prison count. The prison may be gone, but unless the county takes action soon, the closed prison is poised to harm democracy in the county for a decade to come.

“Maryland Bill” — Podcast Episode #2

Peter Wagner speaks with Cindy Boersma of the ACLU about Maryland's new law to count incarcerated people at their home addresses for redistricting purposes.

by Peter Wagner, May 27, 2010

Play (13:02, 6.6MB)

Host: Peter Wagner, Executive Director, Prison Policy Initiative

Guest: Cindy Boersma, Legislative Director of the ACLU of Maryland
May, 2010

Transcript:

Peter Wagner:

Welcome to issues in prison-based gerrymandering, a podcast about keeping the Census Bureau’s prison count from harming our democracy. The Census Bureau counts people in prison as if they were actual residents of their prison cells, even though most state laws say that people in prison are residents of their homes. When prison counts are used to pad legislative districts, the weight of a vote starts to differ. If you live next to a large prison, your vote is worth more than one cast in a district without prisons. Prison-based gerrymandering distorts state legislative districts and has been known to create county legislative districts that contain more prisoners than voters. On each episode, we’ll talk with different voting rights experts about ways in which state and local governments can change the census and avoid prison-based gerrymandering.

Continue reading →

Senator Dilan includes prison fix in redistricting reform proposals

Two bills to create non-partisan redistricting commissions include a clause that will require incarcerated people to be counted at home.

by Peter Wagner, May 27, 2010

New York State Senator Martin Malavé Dilan (D-Brooklyn) has proposed two alternative reforms of the redistricting process in New York State. Senate bill 7881 and Senate bill 7882 change the composition of the redistricting committee that actually draws the lines, among other changes.

Notable for readers of this blog is that both bills require that:

The whole number of persons reported in the federal decennial census shall be the basis for determining populations for the purposes of this article, except that, for the purpose of determining the popu lations of senate and assembly districts, no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence by reason of conviction and incarceration in a federal or state correctional facility.

Because these bills are only directed at state redistricting, they would have no effect on prison-based gerrymandering in county and city governments; but it is positive to see the legislature include prison-based gerrymandering alongside that of partisan gerrymandering.

For more information, see Senator Dilan’s press release: Senator Dilan Proposes Practical and Realistic Framework for Reforming New York’s Redistricting Process.

Don’t let the funding myth mislead Macon County

A rural TV station trips over a bad fact and misses a chance to praise its home county.

by Elena Lavarreda, May 25, 2010

The unfortunate and inaccurate article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that we blogged about several weeks ago has claimed another victim. Like WALB-TV, in Calhoun County Georgia, Channel 41 WMGT, in Macon County Georgia, has fallen for the same misleading arguments. The irony is that both of these counties already reject the Census Bureau’s prison counts for internal county districting. In practice, they are leaders, not opponents, of Census reform.

The WMGT piece repeats the same misguided funding based arguments that both WALB-TV and The AJC make.

Macon County leaders knew when Macon State Prison was built in 1993, it would boost the local economy bringing in almost 400 jobs. One perk they didn’t think about—a boost in population for census data. Population counts from the U.S Census help determine how $400 billion in federal money is spent each year on road projects, schools, hospitals and more.

Peter elaborates on why this funding argument for counting the prisoners at the prison location is just wrong. In the blog post he wrote in response to the AJC story, he states:

Actually, much of the so-called “population-based” aid is not distributed directly to local areas, and most government aid formulas are too sophisticated to be fooled by where people in prison are counted. Medicaid reimbursements and federal highway finds are block grants to states, so it doesn’t matter where in a state a prisoner is counted as long as he is counted in the correct state.

In short, Macon County is not getting rich from the Census Bureau’s prison count.

Unfortunately, this “bad news” story about Macon County merely distracts from the potential “good news” story for this rural county—the fact that Macon County already takes the prisoners out of their districts!

Similar to Calhoun County, Macon County is actually the “good guy” in the Census story. They accepted a prison in their county, for the perceived jobs benefits, but they drew local governmental districts without regard to the prison populations. They instead looked to state law, which says that a prison is not a residence and ignored the prison population when drawing county and city districts. Macon chose not to draw a district that was 25% prisoners. The state should be so enlightened.

With the next round of redistricting on the horizon, this type of action needs to be encouraged. The issue is particularly critical in Macon County because in 2000 the Census made a mistake and only counted half the state prison—if Macon decided to include the prisoners this time the harm to democracy would be twice as large.

Macon County will be faced with a tough question: Should the people who live next to the Macon State Prison have twice as much influence over the future of the county as people who live in other parts of the county? I hope that Macon will again so “No”, but this funding myth runs the risk of undoing the good work that Macon has already done.

“Address Unknown” — Podcast Episode #1

Justin Levitt of the Brennan Center and Peter Wagner discuss model legislation to end prison-based gerrymandering.

by Peter Wagner, May 20, 2010

Play (20:37, 10.8MB)

Host: Peter Wagner, Executive Director, Prison Policy Initiative

Guest: Justin Levitt, Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice
May, 2010

Transcript:

Peter Wagner:

Welcome to Issues in Prison-Based Gerrymandering: a podcast about keeping the Census Bureau’s prison count from harming our democracy.

Continue reading →

8 things our opponents should know about prison-based gerrymandering in New York State

Many of the elected officials who oppose Census reform should be supporting it.

by Peter Wagner, May 18, 2010

To my frustration, prison-based gerrymandering is sometimes portrayed as an upstate vs. downstate, urban vs. rural, Republican vs. Democratic issue. Some of the enthusiasm for reform is unfortunately partisan, but this need not be a partisan issue. Here are 8 reasons why our opponents should be supporting ending prison-based gerrymandering, no matter if they are Republican or Democratic, urban or rural, from upstate or downstate. –Peter Wagner

1. No federal or state funding program will be affected by revising the redistricting data.
2. The New York State Constitution says that a prison cell is not a residence: “no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence, by reason of his or her presence or absence … while confined in any public prison.” Art II, § 4. When they take office, legislators swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the State of New York. Art XIII, § 1.
3. The overwhelming majority of NY counties with large prisons already reject the prison counts for internal redistricting. In these districts, every time the public learns that prison populations are being used to distort districts, they insist on reform. The one time a county legislature — St. Lawrence County — ignored the public outcry and gerrymandered districts around prisons, the county majority lost the next election. Further, two additional jurisdictions that included the prison populations in local districts, Oneida County and the City of Rome, are expected to remove the prison populations prior to districting even if the Schneiderman/Jeffries bill does not pass. A total 13 New York counties currently reject the Census Bureau prison count and draw fair districts. The trend is clear: upstate counties do not think that incarcerated people are residents of their counties.
4. Upstate papers, including the Times Herald-Record (Middletown NY), Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) and Observer-Dispatch (Utica, NY) have all called for an end to prison-based gerrymandering. The Observer-Dispatch said that “figuring those prisoners into the mix when voter representation is determined is absurd” and the Times Herald-Record said that “a politician should be embarrassed to claim that people held in prisons should count as constituents.”
5. Changing where incarcerated people are counted will not mean eliminating your district and transferring it to New York City. New York Senate districts each contain more than 306,000 people each. The total prison population is far smaller than a single district, and both the total prison population and the portion that is from New York City has shrunk over the last decade. Ten years ago, the state had 71,466 people in prison with 66% from New York City. Today, the prison population is down to 58,000 with only 50% being from the city.
6. The issue of prison closures should not be confused with the issue of where incarcerated people should be counted. The Governor wants to close a number of upstate prisons in the next few years, but this issue is entirely separate from the Census. The question of whether the state needs those facilities and what kind of alternative investments the state should be making upstate are entirely unrelated to the question of where incarcerated people are counted.
7. Some Republicans have justified continuing prison-based gerrymandering because they don’t trust the new Democratic majority to treat them fairly during redistricting. Claiming incarcerated people as constituents to get an extra 1% population is not worth ceding the ability to criticize the other sides’ dirty tricks at redistricting time. If the minority party wants to ensure it is treated fairly, it should seek the moral high ground.
8. Using prison populations to pad districts has large effect on New York’s districts, but the numbers were even more dramatic in Maryland. Yet, their “No Representation Without Population Act” passed with bi-partisan support from urban and rural areas. Both lead sponsors (who were Democrats) and some of the rural Republican Senators who voted for the bill had large prisons in their districts. Self-interest and partisan bickering did not come in to play. Annapolis Maryland’s The Capital asked Delegate Joseline Pena-Melnyk why she sponsored the bill despite the large prisons in her district: “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “To me, it is just a fair way to count.”

If you like this article, it is also available in fact sheet form.

Hawaii prisoners held on mainland skew census results

The Honolulu Advertiser highlights how the Census Bureau's decision to credit Hawaiian prisoners to mainland prisons hurts the Hawaiian count.

by Peter Wagner, May 17, 2010

Michael Tsai has a lengthy article in the Honolulu Advertiser that Hawaii prisoners held on Mainland skew census results. I’m quoted, as is Momi Fernandez, director of the Data and Information/Census Information Center at the Native Hawaiian advocacy group Papa Ola Lōkahi.

The article draws some research from the Hawaii section of our 50-state report Fixing prison-based gerrymandering after the 2010 Census.

Close readers of this blog may be surprised by the article’s emphasis on a funding impact from where people in prison are counted. Normally, we argue the Census Bureau’s prison miscount has very little impact on funding. Most federal aid is block grants to states, and most people in prison are incarcerated in their home state. Hawaii is a bit of an exception because it ships so many people to other states, so it does lose some Medicaid and Highway funding.

From my perspective, though, the largest impact is probably the effect on the redistricting process.

Given the concentration of Native Hawaiians in that state’s criminal justice system, accurately counting Hawaii’s prison population is critical for electoral fairness and statistical planning. Because the Census Bureau does not collect the necessary data, I don’t know exactly where the state’s incarcerated people are from and I can’t predict exactly how the prison miscount hurts Native Hawaiians in that state. But I can show the harm caused at the other end of the prison count, as the article explains:

Census reform advocates also argue that large concentrations of prisoners — particularly in the small, rural communities where prisons-for-rent have proliferated in recent years — compromise the integrity of census data and raise threat of gerrymandering during district reapportionment.

In the 2000 census, prisoners from Hawai’i unknowingly played a part in just such a scenario.

According to census data, Native Hawaiians accounted for roughly half of the resident population of Appleton township in Swift County, Minn. — because of a contract between the state of Hawai’i and the Corrections Corporation of America, which operated the district’s Prairie Correctional Facility.

Peter Wagner, founder of the Massachusetts-based Prison Policy Initiative, said counting Hawai’i prisoners as residents of the district surrounding the prison artifically inflated the area’s population profile for redistricting purposes and unfairly weighted the influence of district voters in county governance.

An Illinois prison census bill would bring fairness to redistricting

The city of Danville, Illinois already rejects the idea of using prison populations to draw city districts. Its state and its county should follow suit.

by Peter Wagner, May 17, 2010

The Danville, Illinois Commercial-News is reporting that Loss of prisoners would hurt city. I sent the below letter to the editor which explains that the bill in question would not apply to funding, and I report for the first time that Danville is among the rural Illinois cities that already reject the Census Bureau’s prison count for their own internal redistricting.–Peter Wagner

Your article Loss of prisoners would hurt city [May 15, 2010] says that the Prisoner Census Adjustment Act [HB4650] would cost Danville funds. The bill, which died this session but I hope will be reintroduced in a different form, does not apply to funding.

It merely changes the redistricting data so that state and local governments can draw fair districts based on the actual legal residence of the population. The bill would bring fairness and consistency to redistricting.

The City of Danville already rejected the Census Bureau’s prison count when drawing its local districts after the last Census. The city was right that drawing a district that was 40% prisoners would be unfair to residents in other parts of the city.

Danville is not alone in rejecting the Census Bureau’s prison count. Ten Illinois counties and 4 other Illinois cities do the same.

But both the state legislative districts and the Vermilion County Board are based on prison populations. Using prisoners to pad one Vermilion County Board district dilutes the votes of the residents of the other districts by about 20%.

A state bill to create one consistent dataset for use in redistricting is the best way to go. Everyone should have the same access to government regardless of whether she lives next to a large prison.

Peter Wagner
Executive Director
Prison Policy Initiative
The writer is co-author of Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Illinois, a district-by-district and county-by-county analysis of how the Census Bureau’s prison counts distort democracy.

Model legislation

Example text of a state bill to end prison-based gerrymandering.

by Peter Wagner, May 13, 2010

In consultation with Demos, the Brennan Center for Justice, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and our other allies, we’ve developed some new model legislation for states that wish to avoid prison-based gerrymandering in the next and future rounds of redistricting. We’ve also included some annotations to help adapt the model to your state.