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

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:

New York Times article thumbnail Census Bureau's Counting of Prisoners Benefits Some Rural Voting Districts by Sam Roberts, New York Times, October 24, 2008
iowa public radio logo Prisons and City Elections, by Joyce Russell, Iowa Public Radio, November 3, 2009. Listen: mp3


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