New York Times calls for Census Bureau to count prisoners at their home addresses

by Peter Wagner, November 22, 2004

This week’s fact of the week is an editorial by the New York Times Editorial Board calling for the Census Bureau to change how it counts prisoners:

Jailhouse Blues

EDITORIAL
Published: November 22, 2004

The founding fathers envisioned a simple head count when they decreed that the country would conduct a census once every 10 years for the purpose of apportioning representation in Congress. Over the centuries, the question of who lives where has become more complicated. The census already has to determine where retirees with two homes live or how to count people who live in one city and work in another. It should be simpler counting prisoners.

A quirk in the residency rules counts inmates as “residents” of the prisons even though most are held only for brief periods before returning to their actual homes, which are often hundreds of miles away. The current system clashes with the principle of one person, one vote – by artificially inflating the populations of rural electoral districts and leaving the urban areas to which the prisoners will return underrepresented, particularly in state legislatures.

This prison census was less significant 30 years ago, when the prison population was less than 200,000. But mandatory sentencing policies for drug offenses have driven the prison population across the nation to a staggering 1.4 million. These new offenders are overwhelming black and Hispanic people from inner cities. The prison construction boom, however, has taken place mainly in white, rural counties that have since turned prison inmates into a kind of cash crop.

The citizens of large cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have helped to pay the cost of building and maintaining state prisons, which provide much-needed jobs in many rural districts. They did not, however, count on also giving these generally underpopulated areas extra political influence as well.

The nonvoting inmates – sometimes called “imported constituents” – are often counted in rural districts where legislators vote against the interest of their home cities. Their presence in the census count of prison neighborhoods distorts population statistics and creates legislative districts that fly in the face of federal laws requiring districts to be roughly the same size – plus or minus a variation of about 5 percent. A recent series of reports – from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, the Prison Policy Initiative in Massachusetts and the Urban Institute in Washington – shows that many states have achieved the appearance of parity by drawing the state legislative districts in rural areas so that they include the largest possible number of inmates. Among the 10 states that have experienced the most prison growth, there are more than a dozen counties where at least one in five “residents” is an inmate.

The simplest and fairest solution would be to permit inmates to fill out census forms with their home addresses instead of automatically counting them as residents of the prison county. Most prisoners will have returned to their hometowns long before the next census rolls around. There, they will often be in need of both government services and political consideration.

Prisoners in the census dilute democracy in South Dakota

by Peter Wagner, November 15, 2004

Like most states, South Dakota relies on U.S. Census data to draw its legislative districts. Districts are redrawn each decade so that each districts is of equal size. Having equal numbers of people in each legislative district ensures that each person in that district has an equal access to government. This concept is known as the “One Person One Vote” rule, but it breaks down when the U.S. Census data does not reflect the actual population of the state.

By South Dakota statute, when a person is incarcerated his or her residence remains where he or she lived prior to incarceration:

“A person who has left home and gone into another … county … for a temporary purpose only has not changed his or her residence.” S.D. Codified Laws Sect. 12-1-4 (2003)

Yet, the Census Bureau, following its “usual residence rule” — first developed in 1790 long before state redistricting was envisioned — counts the incarcerated as residents of the town that contains the prisons rather than of their home communities.

Pennington County, which contains Rapid City, has 12% of South Dakota’s population but supplies 24% of the state’s prisoners. At the time of the Census, the county contained no state prisons, so these incarcerated residents of Pennington County were credited to other parts of the state.

Prisoners are not allowed to vote in South Dakota, but the presence of disenfranchised prisoners in the Census counts of prison towns swells the population and political power of those districts at the expense of the prisoner’s home communities. This issue should be of particular concern to Native American communities in South Dakota, because Native Americans are incarcerated at almost 4 times the rate of White people in the state.

According to my analysis of South Dakota legislative districts, 3 districts are at least 3% incarcerated prisoners. In one district, more than 6% of the Census population is behind bars. In these districts, a sizable portion of the district is from somewhere else, making a vote by a real resident of that district more powerful than a vote elsewhere in the state.

New Report: Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Montana

by Peter Wagner, November 14, 2004

I’ve posted a new report showing how the Census Bureau’s method of counting prisoners as residents of the rural areas that host prisons skews the democratic process in Montana.

The report identifies one district, House District 85 that counts among its census population 1,308 incarcerated people. The District is 14.5% prisoners, a higher figure than in any other state legislative district yet discovered in the United States. Prisoners can’t vote in Montana, and on their release they will be returning to their home communities, but their presence at the prison town in the Census dilutes the votes of their family members back home. Every group of 85 residents in District 85 gets as much of a say over state affairs as 100 people in elsewhere in the state. The Supreme Court’s ‘One Person One Vote’ rule was supposed to eliminate such large difference in voting power.

Texas sees damaged democracy from Census counts of prisoners

by Peter Wagner, November 8, 2004

The Census Bureau counts incarcerated people as if they were residents of the towns that contain the prisons and jails. Thanks to the rapid rise in incarceration over the last 20 years, this once obscure quirk results in a significant boost to Texas’ rural areas that host prisons while reducing the population of the urban areas where most prisoners come from.

States are required to redraw their legislative boundaries each decade so that each will contain the same number of people as required by the 14th Amendment’s One Person One Vote principle. Equally sized districts ensure that each resident has an equal access to government regardless of where she or he lives.

This concept breaks down when the Census data doesn’t reflect where people actually live, in this case the 244,363 people in the Census counted as residents of correctional institutions. My newest report, Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Texas, found one legislative district, House District 13 (which includes Walker county, represented by Lois Kolkhorst) that counts among its census population 16,670 incarcerated people. The District is 12% prisoners, a higher figure than in any other state legislative district yet discovered in the United States.

Prisoners can’t vote in Texas, and on their release they will be returning to their home communities, but their presence at the prison town in the Census dilutes the votes of their family members back home. Every group of 88 residents in District 13 gets as much of a say over state affairs as 100 people in Houston or Dallas. This is exactly the kind of regional inequality in voting power that the Supreme Court’s ‘One Person One Vote’ rule was supposed to eliminate.

Source: Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Texas.

State officials tell counties to exclude prison populations from county level redistricting

by Peter Wagner, November 1, 2004

Previous articles have discussed individual counties in California and New York that have decided after public outcry to exclude incarcerated non-resident populations from their populations for purposes of local redistricting. This article looks at how 5 state legislatures and attorneys general have responded to the severe problem caused by the combination of an outdated Census Bureau “usual residence rule” and a rapidly growing population of prisoners incarcerated far from their homes. In four of these states, the state officials either required or encouraged the removal of prison populations.

Students and prisoners: Census should not count them the same

by Peter Wagner, October 25, 2004

The Census Bureau currently counts college students and prisoners the same way: as residents of the town in which they sleep. This makes sense for students, because they are a part of the surrounding college community, but prisoners have no such ties. The below table from my Actual Constituents: Students and Political Clout in New York report compares how students interact with the surrounding community with how prisoners do not.

Notes: Actual Constituents: Students and Political Clout in New York explains how state legislative districts are drawn, why they are drawn to contain equal numbers of people, why it makes good sense to include students at their college addresses as a part of legislative districts, and why students should be welcomed at the polls. For more contrasts between students and prisoners, see also the analysis in the Brennan Center’s report: One Size Does Not Fit All: Why the Census Bureau Should Change the Way It Counts Prisoners [PDF]

Public rightly insists that that federal prison be excluded from new California county’s districts

by Peter Wagner, October 18, 2004

The California county of Santa Barbara is considering splitting itself in two, and the commission charged with drawing Supervisor districts for the proposed new Mission County ran straight in to controversy by including the 3,137 prisoners at the Lompoc federal prison within one district. Each district was supposed to contain about 41,000 residents, so this was a considerable non-resident boost to the population in one particular district.

According to the Santa Barbara News-Press, the two commissioners charged with drafting the districts “initially included the prison population with the reasoning that ‘just because someone is a convicted felon, they are part of the census population and deserve representation’.” This assumption wasn’t popular with the residents for good reason.

“I’d hate to see you use the prison population; that opens up a whole can of worms,’ said Bill Giorgi of Nojoqui Falls Ranch during a public hearing Monday in Solvang. ‘It’s been used for political purposes in the past.'”

The Chair of the Commission, Ted Tedesco supported the residents who wanted the prisoners excluded from the districts: “We really don’t provide them with any services…. I don’t feel comfortable including them.”

These arguments were persuasive. One of the commissioners that presented the original plan, Jack Boyson, told the Santa Maria Times why prisoners were excluded in the final plan resubmitted in October: “Prisoners don’t require county services, they don’t use our roads.”

Excluding the prisoners at the federal prison from the county redistricting was the right thing to do. Jack Boyson was partially right the first time, though. Prisoners do deserve representation in local government, but not in the community that contains the prison.

Census data asks: Where are the Hispanic children? But it’s the wrong question.

by Peter Wagner, October 11, 2004

Are Hispanics in rural New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and other rural places not having children? Or are these the new retirement hotspots for Hispanics? Those are also the wrong questions. The question really should be: Where are the fathers?

By way of background, 25.7% of people of all ethnicities in the U.S. are under the age of 18. This varies from place to place, in part because of where people of certain ages choose to live. For example, many older people move to Florida, so that state has a very low proportion of young people.

Nationally, Hispanics are a much younger population than the total U.S. population, as 35% are under the age of 18. Unfortunately, it is hard to tell whether there are any relevant age-based trends in Latino migration for economic or social reasons because the Census Bureau’s data is overwhelmed by the number of adult Latinos moved to rural counties against their will for purposes of incarceration.

Census expert Prof. Persily suggests allowing data users to decide where prisoners should be counted.

by Peter Wagner, October 4, 2004

In previous articles, I have called for the U.S. Census to count prisoners at their home addresses rather as residents of the prison town. All states currently rely on the U.S. Census for data for their legislative redistricting, despite the fact that most states define residence for prisoners to be their pre-incarceration address.

From a voting rights perspective that looks at how Census counts of prisoners dilute urban and minority voting strength, changing where the U.S. Census counts prisoners appears to be the only way to give state legislatures the data they need to draw their districts fairly.

In a paper at a Census Bureau symposium in March, Professor Nathaniel Persily suggested another solution. While including prisoners within the prison town is clearly bad for legislative redistricting, there may be other policy purposes where the number of people physically present is most important.

The solution? Change the form given to prisoners, and ask not only for the prison’s address, but for the individual’s pre-incarceration address. The Census Bureau could then package a dataset for redistricting purposes that would use the pre-incarceration address of prisoners. Professor Persily wrote: “In doing so, the Bureau would remain true to its mission as information provider without having to take a stand on exactly where states and localities should place prisoners.”

This compromise would be a marked improvement over the current Census methodology that denies states seeking to draw fair districts an accurate answer to the question: Where does our population reside?

Boston Globe profiles Prisoners of the Census project

by Peter Wagner, September 27, 2004

Drake Bennett has written an excellent profile of the Census issue in the Boston Sunday Globe Ideas section. The piece ties together the harm to democracy in both urban and rural communities from the Census Bureau’s practice of counting prisoners as residents of the prison town and makes all of the necessary connections to larger issues.

As the Boston Globe article may disappear over time, I’ve permanently archived it on the Prison Policy Initiative website:

Head count: The Census counts prisoners as residents of the towns where they’re incarcerated. One crusading lawyer from Northampton thinks this little clerical matter is a big problem for American democracy.