“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
What’s new
- Washington Governor Jay Inslee signs law ending prison gerrymandering For immediate release — Today, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee signed a bill into law ensuring that people in state prisons will be counted as.... Read more
- Washington State passes bill ending prison gerrymandering Pending Governor Jay Inslee's signature, Washington State will become the fifth state to count incarcerated people at their home addresses during.... Read more
- Bill to end prison gerrymandering passes second chamber in Washington State The Washington State legislature is close to passing a bill enabling its redistricting commission to end prison gerrymandering. Read more
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Progress towards ending prison gerrymandering
The Prison Policy Initiative launched a movement to protect our democracy from the prison industrial complex. And we’re winning:
The national movement against prison gerrymandering began in 2001 when the founders of the Prison Policy Initiative discovered that the sheer size of the prison population was combining with an outdated Census Bureau rule to seriously distort how political decisions are made in this country. We put numbers to the problem and suggested solutions in a series of reports and sparked a national movement.
Since then, we’ve made tremendous progress towards ending prison gerrymandering:
- Four states passed legislation to end prison-based gerrymandering and count incarcerated people at home for redistricting purposes. Maryland and New York's laws changed the 2011 redistricting, and Delaware and California's laws will apply after the 2020 Census. New York's law was upheld by the New York Supreme Court, and Maryland's law was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States.
- The Census Bureau agreed to publish prison count data earlier than in the past, in order to assist states and counties with reallocating or removing incarcerated populations during the redistricting process.
- Our research and organizing has led hundreds of county and municipal governments across the country to reject the Census Bureau’s prison counts and avoid prison-based gerrymandering.
- We led hundreds of civil rights, voting rights and criminal justice organizations and nearly 100,000 individuals to ask the Census Bureau to end prison gerrymandering before the 2020 Census.
Recommended Reading:
About the Prison Policy Initiative
Learn more about the organization behind the Prison Gerrymandering Project.
In prisons, Blacks and Latinos do the time while Whites get the jobs
We explore the racial disparity inside prisons.
Rome NY ends prison gerrymandering, Census Bureau can do better
Rome finally corrected the problem of prison gerrymandering within its borders; other cities and counties need the Census Bureau's help.
Prison-based gerrymandering's historical precedent
This is not the first time a policy barred people of color from the polls and transferred their political power to white voters.