The Census Bureau recently announced that they would start identifying census blocks that contain prisons. It's a move hailed by advocacy group Prisoners of the Census, which calls it a first step toward ending "prison gerrymandering."
Where prisoners get counted is a particularly pressing issue in New York State, where most of the prison population hails from the greater NYC metropolitan area, and most of the prisons are in rural upstate regions. The Census counts prisoners in the regions where they're incarcerated--numbers that are used for drawing political districts, despite the fact that prisoners can't vote. The Census numbers are also used for determining the allocation of federal and state aid.
A bill in the New York State legislature is seeking to reform prisoner counting ahead of the 2010 Census:
The Prison Policy Initiative Web site (www.prisonpolicy.org ) states that the Census Bureau counted 43,740 New York City residents in upstate prisons and that "seven upstate New York state Senate districts would not meet minimum population requirements and would have to be redrawn" if the bill were passed.
No surprise: Upstate politicians in districts with large prisons are opposing the measure.
Earlier post: Is everyone in the North Country a CO?
