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
Can you help us continue the fight? Thank you.
—Peter Wagner, Executive DirectorDonate
| County | Incarceration rate |
|---|---|
| Adams | 179.6 |
| Allegheny | 292.4 |
| Armstrong | 107.7 |
| Beaver | 152.1 |
| Bedford | 50.0 |
| Berks | 265.2 |
| Blair | 133.2 |
| Bradford | 250.2 |
| Bucks | 81.5 |
| Butler | 83.3 |
| Cambria | 112.1 |
| Cameron | 200.9 |
| Carbon | 148.0 |
| Centre | 120.8 |
| Chester | 165.9 |
| Clarion | 136.5 |
| Clearfield | 224.3 |
| Clinton | 131.9 |
| Columbia | 92.0 |
| Crawford | 221.3 |
| Cumberland | 130.1 |
| Dauphin | 589.4 |
| Delaware | 222.2 |
| Elk | 131.0 |
| Erie | 441.9 |
| Fayette | 269.8 |
| Forest | 424.6 |
| Franklin | 282.3 |
| Fulton | 315.5 |
| Greene | 236.0 |
| Huntingdon | 118.5 |
| Indiana | 125.0 |
| Jefferson | 108.9 |
| Juniata | 131.5 |
| Lackawanna | 191.8 |
| Lancaster | 171.5 |
| Lawrence | 221.9 |
| Lebanon | 214.4 |
| Lehigh | 265.9 |
| Luzerne | 112.5 |
| Lycoming | 388.2 |
| McKean | 172.0 |
| Mercer | 288.5 |
| Mifflin | 213.0 |
| Monroe | 139.2 |
| Montgomery | 165.7 |
| Montour | 148.1 |
| Northampton | 135.5 |
| Northumberland | 270.7 |
| Perry | 215.6 |
| Philadelphia | 964.6 |
| Pike | 131.7 |
| Potter | 177.0 |
| Schuylkill | 89.1 |
| Snyder | 231.7 |
| Somerset | 133.7 |
| Sullivan | 259.3 |
| Susquehanna | 158.6 |
| Tioga | 234.5 |
| Union | 132.1 |
| Venango | 333.5 |
| Warren | 164.1 |
| Washington | 125.2 |
| Wayne | 215.8 |
| Westmoreland | 95.1 |
| Wyoming | 213.7 |
| York | 255.7 |
Sources and methodology
- Incarceration rate
- These figures represent the number of people who were sentenced from particular county, divided by the population of that county and then multiplied by 100,000. This methodology allows comparison of counties with different sized populations. These calculations are as of December 31, 2000, and are reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections in Annual Statistical Report, 2000 [PDF] in Table 14 on page 27. Table 13 in the same report contains the raw numbers for each county.
Recommended Reading:
About the Prison Policy Initiative
Learn more about the organization behind the Prison Gerrymandering Project.
The Racial Geography of Mass Incarceration
The transfer of Black and Latino incarcerated people to communities very different than their own is a nationwide problem.
Do prisons draw in Census money for their host communities? No.
We explain that prison gerrymandering is bad for democracy but federal & state aid are not impacted.
Prison-based Gerrymandering in Anamosa, Iowa
How a prison helped one man get elected with just two votes.