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.

Can you help us continue the fight? Thank you.

—Peter Wagner, Executive DirectorDonate

Recent media coverage reveals a misconception about basic principles of our electoral system. The Census Bureau does not have a “new policy” regarding populations used in redistricting.

by Aleks Kajstura, March 8, 2010

Recent media coverage makes it clear that there is a misconception about basic principles of our electoral system. Many people are claiming that the Census Bureau has changed some policy and is now allowing states to exclude certain populations in the redistricting process.

Actually, the Census Bureau has no authority over districting. The Census Bureau does provide data that states can use in their individual redistricting processes. States use this data because it is easily accessible and often the only or best data available. States were never required to use this data. (Next week I will blog about a court case that expressly prohibited using Census data where using the data would have lead to unequal districts.)

The Census Bureau recently announced that it will publish group quarters population data in May 2011 (prisons are one kind of group quarters). If they wish, the states can adjust their populations, taking into consideration the location and population of prisons, when redistricting. The Bureau is simply making an existing process easier. A few states have already required their counties to make this exact adjustment in their populations when redistricting, and many more counties made such adjustments on their own.

The Census Bureau was simply responding to a need that was already there. The Census Bureau has no “new policy” regarding populations used for redistricting; that choice is, and always has been, reserved by each state and local goverment.

New report and resources on prison-based gerrymandering in Maryland

by Peter Wagner, March 8, 2010

map of state districts with large prisons Avi Cummings and I have finished Importing Constituents: Incarcerated People and Political Clout in Maryland, our district-by-district analysis of how crediting Baltimore City’s incarcerated residents to remote districts distorts democracy and dilutes the votes of all voters in all other districts.

We’ve also released two fact sheets:

and created a new page for the Maryland campaign.

Census Bureau Director Robert Groves writes on his blog about how incarcerated people are counted in the Census.

by Peter Wagner, March 2, 2010

Census Bureau Director Robert Groves has a new blog post: So, How do You Handle Prisons? that addresses how the Bureau counts people in prison. He discusses the mechanics of the count, the controversy about where incarcerated people should be counted, and some of the logistical and conceptual challenges to fairly and accurately counting incarcerated people in the right spot.

Orange County paper addresses the political log-jam that keeps prison-based gerrymandering on the books in New York State.

by Peter Wagner, March 1, 2010

Keith Goldberg writes about the effort to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York State in the Times Herald-Record (Orange County, NY). On Feb 19, the paper’s editorial board said that “a politician should be embarrassed to claim that people held in prisons should count as constituents” and called for the state to pass legislation to end the practice of padding legislative districts with prisons.

The editorial concluded with the pessimistic prediction that a lawsuit would be necessary to end prison-based gerrymandering, and today’s article takes on the legal and political arguments that are holding up reform.

Continue reading →

The Utica New York Observer-Dispatch calls prison-based gerrymandering "absurd" and says their state senator and assemblywoman should support reform bills.

by Peter Wagner, February 26, 2010

The Utica New York Observer-Dispatch, is calling for their state senator and assemblywoman to support S6725/A9834 which would eliminate prison-based gerrymandering in state, county and municipal governments in the state. The paper calls prison-based gerrymandering “absurd” and “wrong”.

Read the editorial: Our view: Don’t count prisoners with voters. Redraw districts following 2010 Census to reflect true constituency published on Feb 26, 2010.

Or their previous coverage:

Minnesota Post says advocates are working to end prison-based gerrymandering in that state.

by Peter Wagner, February 25, 2010

Casey Selix writes about the importance of fixing the Census Bureau’s prison counts in Minnesota’s legislative districts in Census issue: when, where — and for what purpose — to count inmates

She quotes Prison Policy Initiative Legal Director Aleks Kajstura on why we are working in Minnesota on this issue with the Second Chance Coalition:

“We’re focusing on Minnesota for three reasons…. First, the Minnesota Constitution says that incarceration does not change a residence. Second, Minnesota has such a strong dedication to the principle of drawing equal districts, that only three other states have House districts that are more equal in population. Third, even though Minnesota has fewer people in prison than most states, there are still enough people being counted in the wrong place to violate the principles of democracy.”

Also quoted is Sarah Walker, a founder of the Second Chance Coalition, who explains why the Coalition is taking up the issue:

“There are so many people in prison today that it’s breaking our electoral system, punishing even people who have no involvement with the criminal justice system”

Keesha Gaskins, executive director of the League of Women Voters explains her rational as well:

“This is a democratic issue, with a small ‘d,’ ” she said. “This isn’t a huge partisan issue. It’s about what’s fair for citizens and what’s fair for prisoners.”

The article says that State Sen. Linda Higgins is working on a bill that would fix prison-based gerrymandering in the state.

I tell Congress it's important to count people in prison in the right place; I praise Census Bureau for making it easier to find prison populations in the data.

by Peter Wagner, February 25, 2010

Testimony of Peter Wagner
Executive Director, Prison Policy Initiative
Before the
Information Policy, Census, and National Archives Subcommittee of the
Oversight and Government Reform Committee
February 22, 2010

Thank you, Chairman Towns and Chairman Clay, for inviting me here today. I am Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization-based in Massachusetts. For the last decade, we have studied how the U.S. Census counts people in prison and worked to quantify the policy and legal implications flowing from those technical decisions.

Fairly and accurately counting the prison population matters. On Census day, there will be more than 2.3 million people behind bars in this country. That is a population larger than the 4th largest city in this county, larger than 15 individual states, and larger than the combined populations of our 3 smallest states. As this population disproportionately consists of African-American and Latino men, critical civil rights issues are at stake in a fair and accurate count of this population.

In this testimony I would like to explain some of the distortions in representation that result from the Census Bureau’s current practices regarding how incarcerated populations are counted, and the long-term changes that are needed to fully address the problem. At the same time, I would like to commend the Census Bureau for recently agreeing to an initial step that will provide more timely data to state and local governments that wish to make their own adjustments for a fairer and more accurate count.

Continue reading →

Comments (1)

The Post-Standard in Syracuse, New York, has endorsed ending prison-based gerrymandering in New York State with a strong editorial:

by Peter Wagner, February 25, 2010

The Post-Standard in Syracuse, New York, has endorsed ending prison-based gerrymandering in New York State with a strong editorial:

Legislation would stop ‘prison-based gerrymandering’

By The Post-Standard Editorial Board
February 24, 2010

Cayuga County is the temporary home of more than 2,500 people who don’t want to live there. They live inside the state prisons in Auburn and Moravia and, as such, have little or nothing to do with county life and use few if any county services. All but a relative handful of them — 24 as of Jan. 1 — lived outside the county before they were sent off to prison.

Yet for the purposes of the U.S. Census, those inmates are considered Cayuga County residents. The Census numbers beef up the government aid the county receives and add to the county’s political clout because they are used when legislative districts are redrawn.

Both of those practices are unfair. Most of the inmates in Upstate prisons come from poor, urban communities. They have families in those communities and will eventually return to them — and use county services. Onondaga County, for example, has no state prisons, but currently has about 1,900 people serving time in prisons in other counties. That’s 1,900 people who will not be counted as Onondaga County residents in the Census.

Continue reading →

Hint: It's not urban people.

by Peter Wagner, February 24, 2010

I find it disturbing to see prison-based gerrymandering portrayed as an urban vs rural issue. Why? Because the practice of padding some legislative districts with large prisons dilutes the votes of everyone who does not live next to a large prison. Rural and urban communities suffer about the same.

True, urban communities should have been credited with their true population, but the way the math works out, they suffer almost the exact same vote dilution as rural communities that do not contain prisons.

Democracy is not a zero sum game, and when the data that democracy depends on is flawed, even those who benefit in one way lose in another. The residents of some state senate districts, for example, get extra representation when their leaders claim incarcerated people as residents; but they often suffer in local government. For example, most of the residents of Rome New York have less access to city government than they should, because half of one city council district is incarcerated people who are not from Rome.

There are additional harms that I’m not going to address fully in this post. For example, padding a district with incarcerated people distorts the priorities of the “benefiting” district, dis-aligning the priorities of the district’s representatives and its actual residents. But like I said, prison-based gerrymandering is not an urban vs. rural issue.

Comments (2)

Editorial: if part-time residents can’t be counted at their second homes, consistency requires incarcerated people to be counted at home, not at the prison.

by Aleks Kajstura, February 19, 2010

In a recent editorial, “In new Census, home is where the vote should be,” the Times Herald-Record (Orange County, NY), examines the issue of prison-based gerrymandering in the larger context of voting and election law in New York State.

If it is not right to let a two-month bungalow colony resident vote in the Town of Bethel or the owner of a year-round vacation home vote in Taghkanic, then it should be even less acceptable to let thousands of people who cannot vote, who do not pay taxes, and who really would rather be somewhere else count toward the population of an Assembly, Senate or House district.

I don’t share the paper’s pessimism that we need litigation to resolve where incarcerated people should be counted, I think we can resolve this problem on the core principle of our democratic process: one person, one vote. Fairness, accuracy and the New York State Constitution demand that incarcerated people not be counted as constituents of politicians far from their home districts.

Note: The New York State Const. Article 2, Section 4 provides that “no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence, by reason of his presence or absence … while confined in any public prison.”

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