The Census and the Cell Block

[Joanne98]

This year, the census will count over a million inmates in the wrong place -- and their home communities will suffer for it.

Brenda Wright | March 30, 2010 | web only

"Once, only once, and in the right place" goes the hopeful mantra of the hard-working and underappreciated Census Bureau. But the current rules for counting incarcerated persons are at odds with the last part of this goal. Next week, the census will count 1.6 million people in the wrong spot, distorting democratic representation in many states and localities.
The bureau tallies incarcerated persons as residents of the prison town rather than as residents of their home communities, where they will typically return within 34 months. This policy is as old as the census, but extraordinary growth in the prison population over the last few decades -- coupled with modern uses of the data to apportion political power at all levels of government -- now spells big problems for representative democracy.

In 1970, the incarcerated population in state and federal prisons was just under 200,000. Today, it has ballooned to 1.6 million -- almost the populations of North Dakota, Wyoming, and Vermont combined. Over the same period, prison construction has become a growth industry in many rural locations far removed from the homes of incarcerated persons, who are disproportionately African American and Hispanic. Jurisdictions with prisons become eligible for greater political representation based on populations that have no real connection to the larger district, while the largely urban home communities of incarcerated persons -- which remain their legal residence under the laws of most states -- are shortchanged in terms of political power and representation.

In Illinois, 60 percent of incarcerated persons are from Cook County, yet 99 percent of them are counted as residents elsewhere in the state. In New York, several upstate Senate districts would not meet minimum population requirements without the "constituents" imported into prison cells there. The strongest advocates for harsh sentencing laws in New York have included some of the state senators elected from these very districts.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_census_and_the_cell_block

[brendan120678]

1. The same is true of college students...

they get counted as of where their dorm room is, not their official place of residence.

[Deep13]

3. Right, wherever they reside on Census Day is where they get counted.

After all, they have a right to vote and renew driver's licenses in that location and are spending money and using services in that location. They can also be called for jury duty in the college location.

[Deep13]

2. They get counted based on where they reside on Census Day 2010...

...which I understand is April 1. If someone is in prison on 4/1, then that location gets the count. It's the same for child joint custody cases and college students.

[Bitwit1234]

4. That is one of the reasons for bachmann having a district.

Stillwater Prison is in her district and she gets the benefit of all those lost souls.

[Joanne98]

5. Oh. I didn't know that.