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New NAACP report on "prison-based gerrymandering"

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this press release, this morning "the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) released Captive Constituents, a report on prison-based gerrymandering." Here is more from the press release: As the report details, most states and local governments count incarcerated persons as residents of the prison communities where they are housed when drawing election district lines, even though they are not residents of those communities and have no opportunity to build meaningful ties there. ?This practice is known as ?prison-based gerrymandering,? and it distorts our democratic process by artificially inflating the population count?and thus, the political influence?of the districts where prisons and jails are located,? said John Payton, LDF Director-Counsel...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 01, 2010 (boomark / email).