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NY Times editorial calls for sensible prisoner census counting

By Douglas A. Berman

This morning's New York Times has this editorial headlined "A Fairer Way to Count," which focuses on how prisoners get counted.  Here are excerpts: Maryland struck a blow for electoral fairness this week with a new law requiring that prison inmates be counted at their home addresses when legislative districts are redrawn after the 2010 census.  Other states should follow. Counting inmates as residents ? prison-based gerrymandering ? inflates populations and exaggerates the power of the mainly rural districts where prisons tend to get built.  It undercuts the power of the mainly urban districts where the inmates come from, their families live, and to which they return after release.... Lawmakers in Maryland acted after learning how the prison count had distorted their political landscape...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 15, 2010 (boomark / email).