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Before Census, a Debate Over Prisoners Critics Say Current Method of Counting Inmates Distorts Rural, Urban Tallies

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Before Census, a Debate Over Prisoners Critics Say Current Method of Counting Inmates Distorts Rural, Urban Tallies By Keith B. Richburg Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, April 26, 2009 NEW YORK -- Elizabeth O'C. Little, a Republican state senator, represents a rural Upstate district larger in square miles than Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. But more than 13,500 of her constituents are not living there by choice, they could not vote for her if they wanted to, and most will leave the first chance they get. Those unwilling constituents are incarcerated in one of 13 prisons -- 12 state and one federal -- that have given her district the nickname "Little Siberia." Without the prisoners, the district, which stretches to the Canadian border, may not have the minimum population required to earn a seat in the state Senate...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).