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Anamosa
Prison-based gerrymandering dilutes your vote
“There are many ways to hijack political power. One of them is to draw state or city legislative districts around large prisons — and pretend that the inmates are legitimate constituents.”—Brent Staples
Called prison-based gerrymandering, the practice finds its clearest example in Anamosa, Iowa where a large prison was almost an entire city council district. Council districts are supposed to contain the same number of people, but basing districts on non-voting non-resident prison populations gives a handful of residents the same political power as thousands of residents elsewhere in the city.
Learn more about Anamosa:
Census Bureau's Counting of Prisoners Benefits Some Rural Voting Districts by Sam Roberts, New York Times, October 24, 2008
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.
Are legislative maps hurting prison reforms?
Pam Adams explains how in her downstate Illinois column.
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.