Counting prisoners in prison towns can burden local government

by Peter Wagner, February 23, 2004 Link

In 1999. the tiny village of Grafton Ohio successfully lobbied the Ohio legislature to have state prisoners excluded from its official population totals. Ohio law requires villages to become cities and offer additional services when their population reaches 5,000.

Councilperson John Lescher told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Grafton didn’t have the budget to be a city, and that situation was by design. “Years ago, we laid out a master plan for the village. It included parks, infrastructure and other upgrades. Nowhere did we desire to become a city.”

Becoming a city would require “hiring a labor attorney, a safety/service director and creating a cemetery board and city health district.” Standards for police and firefighters would also be raised, meaning more expense.

Councilperson Lescher complained that as a result of the Census counting state prisoners as Grafton residents, the village will have “to spend money we don’t have to make changes for people that don’t even benefit from our services.”

The record does not say whether Grafton considered lobbying the Census to change counting policy, but 1999 would probably have been too late for the Census to change procedures for the 2000 Census. So instead the village turned to the legislature to adjust the Census data after the fact and exclude prison populations from the population count required for city status.

Census data is used in a variety of ways by countless government programs. Not all states define “city” the way Ohio does, but it’s impossible to predict all of the ways that artificially changing a town’s census numbers can have. Piecemeal after-the-fact solutions make even less sense when you consider that prisoners aren’t considered a part of the prison town community. There is no longer a good reason to count prisoners at the facility. And in the case of towns like Grafton, if the Census Bureau counted prisoners at their home addresses, prison towns would not be faced with the taxes and structures of a city with 6,004 residents when they in fact have only 2,312.

Thanks to D. Malloy for the tip.

Prisoners distort democracy in St. Lawrence County

by Peter Wagner, February 16, 2004 Link

The legislative districts in St. Lawrence County average 7,462 residents in size. District 2 (Ogdensburg) counts 2,074 prisoners in two state prisons as “residents”; District 5 (Gouverneur) includes 1,046 prisoners. None of the prisoners are allowed to vote, and few, if any, are from St. Lawrence County. The votes of 5,639 county residents in District No. 2 have been given the same weight as 7,462 residents in other districts. This is the same as pretending that the votes of 8 people are equal to the votes of 10. Is the principle of “one person one vote” violated when 8 votes are considered equal to 10?

State legislatures are not the only places where democracy is distorted by including prisoner populations in the redistricting data. Counties are also required to redistrict their legislatures (or Boards of Supervisors) after each Census. Although prison hosting communities do not see the prisoners as local residents, the Census chooses to count prisoners as if they were. This creates an interesting problem, as illustrated by adjoining rural counties in upstate New York that treat the prison counting issue in different ways.

St. Lawrence County recently changed policy and counted 3,120 prisoners in their local redistricting plan. The population of one legislative district there is more than one-quarter prisoners. Although the legislative districts average 7,462 county residents, District #2 in Ogdensburg has only 5,639. This gives the residents of District 2 unequal voting power over other county residents.

Franklin, a similar county, neighbors St. Lawrence to the east. Franklin County has always excluded the prison population and has just done so again. This policy avoids what is believed in Franklin County to be an absurd result: A single district (near the Village of Malone) with a population that is two-thirds prisoners. In such a district, actual county residents would have triple the voting power of other county residents.

Prisoners are not allowed to vote. They aren’t allowed to enter the town to participate in it. Their presence is temporary and at the discretion of the Department of Correctional Services. When their sentences expire, or the prison decides to move them, the prisoners will be gone.

As these two counties illustrate, relying on U.S. Census data is not a guaranteed way to establish legislative districts which comply with the one person one vote principle.

Similarities in counting overseas Americans and counting prisoners at home

by Peter Wagner, February 9, 2004 Link

On February 5 2004, the Census Bureau began a test enumeration of Americans in France, Mexico and Kuwait to determine the feasibility of counting all overseas Americans in the 2010 Census. Whether and how to count this population, now estimated at 4.1million, has long been a contentious issue because of the difficulty in locating overseas Americans and in determining whether overseas Americans should be assigned to particular stateside addresses. The debate over overseas Americans offers some guidance on the prisoner-counting question because it shows that the usual residence rule has evolved over time and that questions of necessity, impact, and feasibility shape the rule’s evolution. In sum, a modern Census of a modern America requires a complete count of the nation’s prisoners and it requires that count to be of the prisoners at their home addresses.

First, the “usual residence rule”, which requires prisoners to be counted at the prison and requires that most overseas Americans be excluded from the count, is not fixed in stone. The rules for overseas Americans have changed a number of times, as illustrated by the below chart prepared by the Census Bureau in 1993 and updated by PrisonersoftheCensus.org in 2004.

Residence Rules Pertaining to Americans Overseas: 1870-2000

Beginning in 1820, census takers were supplied with printed instructions to clarify who should be enumerated in their district. Census years not listed below did not include residence rules for the overseas component.

U.S. Military Personnel Stationed Abroad or at Sea

1870, 1880, 1900:

Enumerate at stateside home (also may have been included in overseas population in 1900)

1910-2000:

Do not enumerate at stateside home (included in overseas population)

Federal Civilian Employees Stationed Abroad

1900:

Enumerate at stateside home (also may have been included in overseas population)

1910-30, 1950-2000:

Do not enumerate at stateside home (included in overseas population)

Crews of U.S. Merchant Marine Vessels at Sea

1870, 1880, 1910, 1920:

Enumerate at stateside home (not included in overseas population)

1930, 1940:

Enumerate officers at stateside home. Do not enumerate crews at stateside home. All merchant vessels were homeported, regardless of location, so crews were not included in overseas population

1950-90:

Do not enumerate at stateside home 1950, 1960: included in overseas population if vessel was at sea or in a foreign port 1970: included in overseas population if vessel was at sea with a foreign port as its designation or in a foreign port 1980: not included in overseas population 1990: included in overseas population if vessel was sailing from one foreign port to another or in a foreign port 2000: not included in overseas population

Private U.S. Citizens Abroad for an Extended Period

1910-40:

Enumerate at stateside home (not included in overseas population)

1960-2000:

Do not enumerate at stateside home (included in overseas population only in 1960 and 1970)

As the Census Bureau wrote:

“A major observation that emerged from reviewing these historic materials [to prepare the table] was the lack of a single conceptual thread running through the censuses concerning how Americans abroad fit into the overall decennial enumeration. It was partly this absence that led to the inconsistencies.” (Americans Overseas, page 1.)

Second, political and societal changes in the United States were key factors in the evolution of the usual residence rule for overseas Americans. A review of these same factors requires a change in the rule to count prisoners at their homes and not in the prisons.

Basic feasibility

Overseas Americans are hard to locate. Americans overseas are not required to register their locations with the State Department or local governments, so there is no master list of overseas Americans. This problem is what the Census Bureau’s overseas American test enumeration hopes to answer. Prisoners, on the other hand, are under the complete control of the state. The Census already has experience counting the prisoners themselves, although not in assigning them to their home geography.

Necessity due to demographic change

The 1980 Census was the last Census taken before incarceration rates began to skyrocket.

World War II and the Vietnam War meant an increase in the numbers of Americans overseas and an increased relevancy in counting them. After the Vietnam War ended, the number of overseas Americans fell along with the imperative to count them. Prisoners, on the other hand, used to be a very small population, but now constitute a group larger than our three smallest states combined. Accurately counting this population at home is quite relevant to accurately portraying our society and communities.

Who do we count?

Counting overseas Americans is complicated by definitional issues. Should all American citizens be counted or just those who intend to return home? Should American-born persons who are now citizens of other countries be counted? What about those who are U.S. citizens but lack a financial tie to the U.S. via Social Security or employment for a U.S. company? All of these possibilities have benefits and drawbacks. With prisoners, the answer is as clear and uncontroversial as it is simple: Count them at home.

Unanswered questions as to where to count the population and why

Some Americans are overseas in the furtherance of U.S. government and corporate interests. Other Americans are overseas for personal reasons. Some of these individuals intend to return, and some do not. It can be assumed that most military personnel intend to return, but it is hard to guess the intentions of non-military personnel. Prisoners are quite different. They are present in the prisons involuntarily. It can safely be assumed that prisoners will not choose to remain at the prison when their sentences are completed. Six hundred thousand people are released from U.S. prisons or jails each year, and almost all of the 2 million incarcerated people will eventually leave prison and return home. The median time served before first release for state prisoners is 53 months and for federal prisoners, 18 months. But nobody can guess when — or where, or even if — overseas Americans will return home.

Do sufficient administrative records exist to assign individuals to a geography below the state level?

In a number of Censuses and for certain population groups, the state level overseas population data was provided to the Census from government administrative records that did not include street addresses. As a result, the Census was able to assign individuals to states for purposes of congressional reapportionment, but was not able to determine where these individuals should be counted for redistricting purposes. In other decades and with other populations, this issue was a factor in preventing the Census from counting the overseas groups at all. With prisoners, the Census has many more options. All prisoners are currently enumerated using special forms and procedures, and these forms could be modified to ask prisoners to declare a home address rather than require them to report the facility address. Alternatively, or in the limited circumstances where Census forms are completed administratively by Department of Corrections personnel, the anticipated release address or address at time of arrest could be used. The data exists to completely and accurately count prisoners without any of the difficulties implicit in the counting overseas Americans and assigning them to a specific stateside geography.

Can the count be done accurately?

The “standard review and quality control procedures” applicable to stateside censuses are inapplicable to the “decentralized and globally far-flung nature of these overseas [counting] operations.” (Americans Overseas, page 4.) For example, unlike the stateside census, the Census would be unable to judge completeness of responses against a master address list for the country. Prisoners are far easier. The Census Bureau knows in advance how many prisoners exist and where to send the forms. A complete count can be readily assured for prisoners, with only one question remaining: Where should they be counted? Telling prisoners to declare their own addresses would be a simple solution with none of the complexity involved in locating overseas Americans and assigning them to stateside addresses.

Will it make a difference?

If there will be no impact, changing Census procedures would probably be ill-advised. The expected outcome has often determined the counting mechanism, although there have been surprises. It was expected that the overseas count was proportionate to the state population counts, and therefore should have no impact on congressional reapportionment. But the 1970 overseas count shifted a congressional seat from Connecticut to Oklahoma by a margin of less than 300 people. (Americans Overseas, page 4.) And as the Prison Policy Initiative’s research on its site and this website have indicated, the consistent overrepresentation of urban prisoners in rural prisons has a profound impact on state legislative redistricting.

Conclusion

Whether and how to count overseas Americans is a complicated issue that the Census Bureau hopes will be clarified by its test enumeration that began last week. But looking at how the Census Bureau has approached the overseas Americans issue suggests that our system of government requires prisoners to be counted at their home addresses and not at the prisons. This may not have always been the case, but today, with 2 million predominantly urban and minority people behind bars in predominantly white and rural towns, our democracy requires it.

Americans Overseas in U.S. Censuses by Karen M. Mills, U.S. Census Bureau, November 1993, Technical Paper No. 62.

Census Bureau Begins Overseas Census Test U.S. Citizens in Three Countries to Be Counted U.S. Census Bureau Press Release, February 5, 2004.

Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2001, Tables 6.39 and 6.52