An end to prison gerrymandering? Not in the 2030 Census
The U.S. Census Bureau will once again put the burden on states and local governments to solve prison gerrymandering.
by Aleks Kajstura, April 1, 2026
The Census Bureau is heading into 2030 fully set to repeat the mistakes of past Censuses by failing to count incarcerated people correctly. Even though the 2030 Census is still four years away, that’s just around the corner when it comes to preparing for the nation’s largest peacetime operation. The Bureau’s inaction at this point ensures that it will fuel another decade of prison gerrymandering.
Prison gerrymandering is a problem created because the Census Bureau incorrectly counts incarcerated people as residents of their prison cells rather than their home communities. As a result, when states use Census data to draw new state or local districts, they inadvertently give residents of districts with prisons greater political clout than all other state residents, violating constitutional principles of equal representation. While the Census Bureau drags its feet, states are working to fix prison gerrymandering on their own; in fact, nearly half of the U.S. population now lives in a place that has addressed it.
In the 2020 Census, the Bureau regularly made errors in reporting correctional facility populations. Since then, it should have been pursuing two separate improvements for 2030 — updating its residence criteria to count incarcerated people at home and improving its accuracy in counting prisons and jails — but it disbanded its advisory committees, reduced testing, and is revisiting failed experiments of foisting its work onto other federal agencies instead.
The Bureau’s unwillingness to do better for the 2030 Census leaves states and local governments to end prison gerrymandering on their own once again.
The 2030 Census is heading in the wrong direction
By this point in the decade, the Census Bureau should have started soliciting feedback on its residence criteria, which determines how the Bureau applies its “usual residence” rule to various living situations.
Last decade, the process took the Bureau two years. It started in 2015 by soliciting feedback on its residence rule, and by April of 2016 (this point in the decade) the Bureau was well on its way to publishing the proposed updated rules. Contrast that timeline with the current lead-up to 2030, where there has been no public action so far, though the Bureau claims it will get to it in the next few months.
The Bureau’s testing timeline is slipping as well. The 2026 “operational test” for the 2030 Census has been gutted and delayed, and doesn’t even include group quarters enumeration (counting correctional facilities). As a result, the Bureau is left to repeat its past mistakes, including misplacing prisons, miscounting the number of people in them, and misreporting their race and ethnicity. In reality, the Bureau needs to be doing more testing — not less — to get the correct counts for the number of people in each facility.
Despite administering diminished testing, the Census Bureau is still falling behind schedule. At the start of February, the Bureau was still expected to follow its schedule as originally planned:
But the Bureau recently updated its timeline, quietly slipping in delays:
The Census Bureau’s count is being rejected by states and local governments
The Bureau, on its current path, will struggle to even repeat the flawed count of incarcerated people it did last decade, let alone move toward ending prison gerrymandering. With no solution to prison gerrymandering in sight from the Census Bureau, states and local governments will need to continue adjusting the redistricting data they get from the Census to count incarcerated people at home on their own.
States are stepping in and ending prison gerrymandering on their own
The Census Bureau has a duty to provide states with redistricting data fit for use. However, the growing number of states that are adjusting Census data to count incarcerated people at home and avoid prison gerrymandering shows that the Bureau is failing to meet its obligation. In fact, nearly half the country lives in a state that has taken action to end prison gerrymandering on its own.
The Census Bureau itself acknowledges that state redistricting requires counting incarcerated people at home and has taken steps over the decades to make that easier for them. Thus far, there is no reason to believe it will scale back those efforts. For example, the Bureau now includes group quarters populations in its main redistricting dataset to make it easier for states to reallocate incarcerated people home for redistricting purposes. The Bureau also expanded access to its geocoder to allow states to turn their lists of home addresses into a format compatible for mapping with Census data. But crucially, the Bureau is still stopping short of fixing prison gerrymandering at the source: its own outdated way of counting incarcerated people.
While only the Census Bureau can provide a complete solution to prison gerrymandering, states have been exceptionally successful on their own. Their success is even more impressive when considering the jurisdictional limits of states that do not apply to the federal Census Bureau, such as people who are held behind bars across state borders — including people held by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The states’ success serves as an example to the rest of the nation, and more states should follow their lead to end prison gerrymandering before the 2030 Census.
The Bureau’s current approach harms rural communities
States that have ended prison gerrymandering include deep “blue” states like California, “purple” states like Maine and Pennsylvania, and deep “red” states like Montana, where prison gerrymandering-reform legislation received wide bipartisan support. But even as many states across the political spectrum end prison gerrymandering, rural residents are left disproportionately impacted. In fact, the ten worst prison gerrymanders after the 2020 Census were predominantly found in rural states, and covered districts held by both parties nearly equally. Where states fail to act, local governments — counties and municipalities — are stepping up.
A record number of local governments ended prison gerrymandering after the 2020 census, most of which are rural communities that host prison. Even though local governments have the least power to make big changes, they are doing what they can within their limited options. They are often the first to identify the impact of prison gerrymandering because a single prison can easily make up the majority of a city council district. And beyond redistricting, the Bureau’s approach skews demographic data for small towns, where correctional facilities can easily account for over 50% of the Census population. Despite common misconceptions, ending prison gerrymandering doesn’t impact funding allocations for municipalities or counties. Therefore, more local governments should prepare to take up the task if their states fail to end prison gerrymandering by 2030.
The federal government is once again unfairly burdening states and local governments
As the Census Bureau marches steadfastly toward yet another Census that will count incarcerated people in the wrong place, states need to prepare to adjust their redistricting data once again after 2030. Similarly, local governments need to call on their state to act, and be prepared to avoid prison gerrymandering on their own if the state fails them as well. The failure of the federal government to end prison gerrymandering means states and local governments need to ensure equal representation themselves.
