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

Phantom constituents in the Empire State: How outdated Census Bureau methodology burdens New York counties

By Peter Wagner, Meghan Rudy, Ellie Happel and William Goldberg
July 18, 2007

The impact of prison-based gerrymandering on the New York State legislature is now well-documented. But what do the rural counties do about prison populations with their own county districts?

Most of New York’s rural counties with large prisons reject the Census and fairly apportion political power within the county on the basis of actual — not prison — populations.
There are 5 counties with a district where at least 20% of its population is derived from prisoners.
The Chair of the Livingston County Board of Supervisors uses the prison population in his town to get more than twice as much political clout as he is entitled to.

Press release
Executive Summary
Report (HTML)
Essex County Local Law No 1 of 2003
Table showing size of vote dilution and type of government in New York Counties
Complete Report (PDF)

Fact sheets

Coverage

Inmates Have Political Pull in Some New York Counties by Sam Roberts, New York Times, August 7, 2007
Phantom Voters in New York New York Times Editorial, July 23, 2007
Using inmates for politics Prison census boosts political influence for some N.Y. counties, by Michael Hill, Associated Press, Press-Republican (Plattsburgh, NY) and in papers across upstate New York, July 17, 2007