Why are so many Native Hawaiians incarcerated in Minnesota?

by Peter Wagner, May 10, 2004

The Bureau of Justice Statistics provides incarceration rate data for Latinos, non-Latino Whites, and non-Latino Blacks, but it does not provide this data for other groups. For another Prison Policy Initiative project, we tried to use the Census 2000 data to fill in this gap for every state in the country, but the results were not what we expected, and one finding was so shocking that we had to investigate further.

According to Census 2000 data, Minnesota appears to incarcerate Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders at a rate 45.8 times higher than it incarcerates White people. By Bureau of Justice Statistics figures, Minnesota has the 4th highest racial disparity between Black and White incarceration rates, incarcerating Blacks at a rate almost 13 times as frequently as Whites.

Why would Native Hawaiians in Minnesota be treated so harshly? Could it even be true that the Minnesota has incarcerated 1 out of every 10 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in the state?

Outdated methodology impairs Census Bureau’s count of Black population

by Peter Wagner, May 3, 2004

Census 2000 showed a number of rural counties in the West, Midwest and Northeast that more than doubled their Black populations over the previous decade. Is this some sort of reversal of the great migration that saw millions of Blacks leave the rural South for Northern cities? Is a new economic opportunity drawing Blacks to leave cities for rural places? Not quite.

Most of the counties shown by the Census Bureau to have the fastest growing Black populations (see counties marked in purple in the first map below), are counties with new prisons with large incarcerated Black populations. (Compare with second map below.)

The Census Bureau counts incarcerated people as if they were residents of the prison town, even though prisoners have no contact with the outside community and are not there by choice. This methodology has staggering implications for how and where Black citizens are counted. On Census Day, 2.5% of Black Americans found themselves behind bars. Twelve percent of Black men in their 20s or early 30s are incarcerated. These figures are 7 to 8 times higher than the corresponding statistics for Whites. The Census Bureau’s method of counting the incarcerated disproportionately counts Blacks in the wrong place.

Prison expansion made 56 counties with declining populations appear to be growing in Census 2000

by Peter Wagner, April 26, 2004

Counting incarcerated people as if they were residents of the prison town leads to misleading portrayals of which counties are growing and which are declining. Declining populations in a county are often a sign of economic distress. Census 2000 reported that 78% of counties experienced population growth during the 1990s. Yet 56 of these counties can attribute their growth only to prison expansion and not to children being born or new residents choosing to move to the county. Said another way, for each 50 counties labeled by the Census as growing during the 1990s, one of those counties actually saw a decline in their actual free population. (See map and table.)

Journalist Alan Elsner’s new book on criminal justice system calls for changing Census

by Peter Wagner, April 22, 2004

Alan Elsner’s new book on the U.S. prison system, Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America’s Prisons includes a call for reforming how the U.S. Census counts prisoners. Counting prisoners in the facility town and not at home is discussed in Chapter 10 about rural prisons and is included in Chapter 12’s list of “Some Modest Suggestions”:

“The way in which the Census Bureau counts inmates as citizens of the jurisdictions where they are jailed for purposes of drawing political boundaries or awarding federal grants seems like a clear case of inequity…. Fixing this would send a strong signal of the nation’s continued commitment to social justice.”

Source: Alan Elsner, Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America’s Prisons, Prentice Hall, 2004, p. 221.

Twenty one counties have twenty one percent of their population in prisons and jails

by Peter Wagner, April 19, 2004

Counting large external populations of prisoners as local residents leads to misleading conclusions about the size and growth of communities. Many of the prison hosting counties have relatively small actual populations, but large prison populations. Twenty one counties in the United States have at least 21% of their population in prison. (See map and table.) In Crowley County, Colorado and West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, one-third of the population consists of prisoners imported from somewhere else.

The distortion of Census data caused by counting people in prisons is “Too Big To Ignore”

by Peter Wagner, April 12, 2004

Rose Heyer and I will release a new report tomorrow: Too big to ignore: How counting people in prisons distorted Census 2000. The report is the first national look at the impact of prisoner enumeration policies on the county population size, growth, race, ethnicity, gender and income. The Census counts prisoners as if they were residents not of their homes but of the prison town. The report concludes that due to modern uses of Census data and high incarceration rates, the impact is now too big to ignore. It’s time to update the Census Bureau’s method of counting the incarcerated and start counting prisoners at their home addresses.

Findings include:

• Twenty one counties in the United States have at least 21% of their population in correctional facilities.
• One out of every 50 counties reported as growing during the 1990s actual saw a decline in the actual population. New prison cells made these counties appear to be growing.
• Census data report rapidly growing Black populations in rural white counties. This population consists not of willing migrants but primarily of prisoners moved to the county for temporary incarceration.
• Many counties report concentrations of Latino adults without many children. These too are frequently the results of a prison in the community.
• Many of the counties where unmarried men outnumber unmarried women are counties with large male prisons. This ratio is useful for government planning, but due to the impact of prisons is difficult to use below the state level.
• Inclusion of prisoners in per-capita income figures complicates efforts to study and address rural and urban poverty.

How Census Bureau counts prisoners undercounts Michigan’s cities

by Peter Wagner, April 5, 2004

The way the Census Bureau counts state prisoners — not at home but as if they were residents of the prison town — reduces the population of Michigan’s largest cities and makes the prison hosting counties look larger than they really are. Census Bureau figures influence a county’s political clout because these numbers are used to draw legislative district boundaries and distribute some state and federal funds.

Although only 20% of the state’s population, Wayne County (which contains Detroit) is the home of origin for almost 30% of the state’s prisoners. There is a large state correctional facility in the county, but Wayne County had almost 14,000 residents in state prison during Census 2000. As a result, the Census Bureau counted 9,974 Wayne County residents as residents of other counties because they were incarcerated outside the county. Kent, Genesee, Oakland, Ingham and Berrien Counties all lose population to this counting method. (See first map at right.)

Census counts of prisoners stymie Arizona’s efforts to create equally sized districts

by Peter Wagner, March 29, 2004

On March 1, 2004, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission released the new maps for the state legislature. The maps are currently open to public comment and will be presented to the Court and the Justice Department for approval in April.

The Commission did a relatively good job of keeping district size deviations to a minimum. (See first map at right.) Ensuring that districts are of equal size is how each resident is guaranteed equal representation under the “one person one vote” principle.

Updating district boundaries after each Census is important so that the districts can reflect the new population. This is doubly important in Arizona, the second fastest growing state in the country. Arizona was 40% larger in 2000 than it was in 1990.

But the Arizona Redistricting Commission failed to account for an even faster growing population: prisoners. The population of state, local, federal and private prisons and jails more than doubled from 1990 to 2000. On Census Day 2000, the U.S. Census counted 45,783 people in correctional facilities in Arizona and assigned each of these individuals to the prison’s address.

Miscounting prisoners complicates Census portrait of New Jersey

by Peter Wagner, March 22, 2004

Eighteen percent of New Jersey’s prisoners are from Essex County which includes Newark. Thirty percent of the state’s prisoners are incarcerated in Cumberland County far to the south.

Essex County (which includes the city of Newark) sends more residents to prison than any other county in New Jersey. Essex County is home for 18% of New Jersey’s prisoners, but only 9.4% of the state’s population. With only 11% of the state’s prison cells located in Essex County, many prisoners are incarcerated outside the county.

The U.S. Census counts prisoners not at their homes but as if the prisoners were residents of the prison town. This changes county populations and skews their demographics.

[The situation in Camden County is similar. Camden County has 6% of the New Jersey’s population but supplies 14% of the state’s prisoners. Only 5% of the state’s prisoners are are incarcerated in Camden County.]

Rural Cumberland County is 120 miles to the south of Newark on Delaware Bay. Only 2% of New Jersey’s prisoners call Cumberland County home, but almost 30% of the state’s prisoners are incarcerated in three large prisons in the county. This shift in the population affects how much representation each of these counties receives in the legislature. But attempts by policy makers to examine the needs of these counties is complicated by the impact of prisoners on other statistics.

Census counts of prisoners shift population in California

by Peter Wagner, March 15, 2004

Los Angeles County is 28% of the state of California, but it supplies 34% of the state’s prisoners. The political effect of this disproportionate incarceration is magnified by the fact that the Census Bureau counts prisoners where they are incarcerated, not where they are from. Few prisoners are incarcerated in Los Angeles County — the county contains only 3% of the California’s state prison cells.

The situation is reversed in prison-hosting regions like Kings County, a 3 hour drive to the north. Kings County’s reported population of 129,461 is greatly inflated by the inclusion as local residents of 17,262 state prisoners. This small county has 0.89% of California’s land mass and 0.33% of California’s non-incarcerated residents, yet it contains 12% of the state’s prisoners.

In order to accurately reflect our communities, the Census Bureau should update its methodology to count prisoners where they voluntarily reside: at home.