Today's New York Times has an editorial calling for the Census Bureau to
change how it counts prisoners. Notably, the piece talks about how many
rural counties treat the issue of prison populations when drawing their own
legislative districts: when the public discovers that prisoners are
distorting local democracy, the prison populations are removed.

-Peter Wagner
  
-- 
Peter Wagner          http://www.PrisonersoftheCensus.org
pwagner@prisonpolicy.org      http://www.prisonpolicy.org
Prison Policy Initiative PO Box 127 Northampton, MA 01061


------ Forwarded Message
From: Peter Wagner <pwagner@prisonpolicy.org>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 01:40:08 -0400
To: Prisoners of the Census news
<Prisonersofthecensus-news@prisonersofthecensus.org>
Subject: [PrisonersoftheCensus] Phantom Constituents Behind Bars -- New York
Times editorial

What's new from Prisoners of the Census,
http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org
a project of the Prison Policy Initiative:

* * *

PHANTOM CONSTITUENTS BEHIND BARS
New York Times editorial, May 2, 2006
[URL: http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/news/fact-2-5-2006.shtml ]

Demographers and voting rights advocates are rightly pressuring the
Census Bureau to begin counting the nation's 1.4 million prison
inmates at their home communities Ñ and not as "residents" of the
prisons, the current practice. Counting the inmates at prison
inflates the prison community's population and political influence,
while draining political clout from the communities where inmates
actually live.

Most Americans aren't aware that prisoners are counted as part of the
population in the electoral district where they serve time Ñ even
though they often live hundreds of miles away and are barred from
voting in all but two states. But recent evidence shows that voters
in nonprison communities become outraged when they learn that
nonvoting prison populations in adjacent districts are being
leveraged against them. When made aware of the scheme, voters
typically demand that the inmates be dropped from the district count
so as not to skew local legislative authority. But state legislatures
inevitably include inmates in the count when drawing state
legislative districts, which shifts political power from the places
were inmates actually live to the prison districts.

The Census Bureau balked and raised unconvincing excuses recently
when Congress asked it to consider a system that would count inmates
at home instead of at prison. But the prison census controversy is a
potentially explosive issue whose time has clearly come.

The bureau should get busy on a system for counting inmates where
they live as opposed to where they do time.

* * *

I welcome your feedback on the issue, the website, and this message.
And as always, if you prefer to not receive these messages, just let
me know.

Best wishes,
Peter Wagner

--
Peter Wagner          http://www.PrisonersoftheCensus.org
pwagner@prisonpolicy.org      http://www.prisonpolicy.org
Prison Policy Initiative PO Box 127 Northampton, MA 01061

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