Site menu:
Local governments that exclude prison populations
Last update: January 20, 2012
This page lists county or municipal governments that are known to have excluded prison populations when drawing local districts after the 2000 Census. We're working on a similar list of districts drawn after the 2010 Census right now. If you know of other places to be added to either list, please contact us.
Select counties, cities and towns that exclude prison populations from local redistricting after the 2000 Census
- Alabama counties: Escambia County
- Arizona towns: Buckeye
- Arizona counties: Pinal
- Arkansas cities: Forrest City
- Arkansas counties: Lee, Lincoln
- California counties: Amador, Del Norte, Imperial, Kern, Kings, Lassen, Madera, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Tuolumne Counties, plus the proposed (but never formed) Mission County.
- Connecticut towns: Enfield
- Colorado counties: all counties - the states requires local governmental bodies to exclude prison populations from their local districting
- Florida counties: Columbia, Gulf County, Hamilton, Holmes, Madison
- Georgia cities: Garden City, Milledgeville (in Baldwin county)
- Georgia counties: Calhoun, Dooly, Macon, Tattnall, Telfair and Wilcox counties
- Illinois cities: Crest Hill, Galesburg, Canton, Danville, Pontiac, and Vandalia
- Illinois counties: Bond, Christian, Crawford, Fayette, Fulton, Knox, LaSalle, Livingston, Logan, and Montgomery Counties [PDF]
- Kansas cities: Lansing
- Kentucky counties: Boyle
- Louisiana parishes: West Feliciana Parish
- Louisiana school boards: Iberville and Evangeline Parishes (and perhaps other bodies)
- Massachusetts cities: Gardner
- Michigan cities and counties: all counties (Mich. Comp. Laws § 46.404(g)) and municipalities(Mich. Comp. Laws § 117.27a (5))exclude anyone in a state institution who is not a resident of the city or county for election purposes.
- Mississippi counties: Bolivar, Greene and Wilkinson - the Mississippi Attorney General advises counties to exclude prison populations when redistricting.
- Missouri cities: Farmington
- New Jersey school districts: all school districts - the states requires local governmental bodies to exclude prison populations when drawing school board districts
- New Mexico cities: Aztec City
- New York counties: Greene, Franklin and Cayuga, Chemung, Clinton, Dutchess, Essex, Orange, Orleans, Schoharie, Sullivan, Washington and Wyoming
- North Carolina counties: Columbus
- Ohio cities: Lima
- Oklahoma counties: Greer County
- Oklahoma cities: McAlester
- South Carolina counties: Allendale, Edgefield, Lancaster, Lee, Marlboro, and McCormick
- South Dakota counties: Bon Homme
- Texas counties: Anderson, Bee, Brazos, Childress, Concho, Coryell, Dawson, Grimes, Karnes, Madison, Mitchell, Pecos, Walker, and Wood
- Virginia counties: Brunswick, Greensville, Richmond and Sussex - the state encourages counties that are more than 12% prisoners to exclude prison populations when redistricting. (Four of the 5 counties eligible excluded the prison population. The fifth, Buckingham County, arrived at the same result by other means: they split the prison population up between all the districts.)
Select counties, cities and towns that exclude prison populations from local redistricting after the 2010 Census
- California counties: Amador, Imperial, Madera.
- Florida counties: Franklin
- Georgia counties: Dooly
- Illinois counties: Bond, Crawford, Fayette, Fulton, Jefferson, Lawrence, Lee, Livingston, Montgomery, Rock Island, Will
- Illinois cities: Galesburg, Pontiac
- Kentucky counties: Clay
- Michigan counties: Saginaw
- Mississippi counties: Greene, Sunflower, Tallahatchie
- Missouri cities: Farmington, Licking
- New York counties: Cayuga, Clinton, Dutchess, Genesee, Greene, Orleans, Seneca, Westchester
- North Carolina counties: Caswell, Columbus
- Ohio cities: Lima
- South Carolina counties: Edgefield
- Texas counties: Anderson, Brazoria, Coryell, Potter
- Texas cities: Huntsville, Victoria
- Virginia counties: Greensville, Richmond, Sussex
- Wisconsin counties: Adams, Crawford, Dodge
- Wisconsin cities: Baraboo, Boscobel, New Lisbon, Portage, Prairie du Chien, Stanley
Follow us
Join our weekly email newsletter about the U.S. Census and prison-based gerrymandering:
Meet us
- Feb 18, 2012: Peter Wagner will discuss prison-based gerrymandering on a Race & Voting panel at the RebLaw Conference at 11am at Yale Law School in New Haven CT.
- February 23, 2012: Peter Wagner will speak about disproportionate incarceration and sentencing enhancement zones at the Springfield, Mass. Community Forum Against Three Strikes at the Rebecca Johnson School, 6pm.
- April 26-28, 2012: Peter Wagner will be speaking about prison-based gerrymandering at the A New Vision of Black Freedom: The Manning Marable Memorial Conference at Columbia Univ. in New York City. Exact day/time TBA.
Not near you? Invite Peter to your town.
