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OK: Prisons can inflate districts' influence

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Prisons can inflate districts' influence by: MICHAEL OVERALL World Staff Writer Sunday, September 20, 2009 For maps to to: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=14&articleid=20090920_ 11_A1_Onamap449564 On a map of county commissioner districts in Osage County, the border of District 1 zig-zags along rather predictably until it passes north of a state prison near Hominy. Suddenly, the line veers south to throw a hook around the Dick Conner Correctional Center, capturing the inmate population as "residents" for the district. For the past nine years, Massachusetts-based researcher Peter Wagner has been trying to prove that many states, including Oklahoma, use prisons for "gerrymandering." Padding their populations with people who can't vote in local elections, the districts are artificially inflating their own political clout, Wagner says...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on September 20, 2009 (boomark / email).