Fourteen states ripe for prison gerrymandering reform

Despite major progress ending prison gerrymandering across the country, the problem continues to plague some state and local governments.

by Aleks Kajstura

Everyone is supposed to have an equal voice in their government’s decisions, but an outdated and misguided Census Bureau policy that counts incarcerated people in the wrong place gives a few residents of each state a megaphone. It is a problem known as prison gerrymandering, and state lawmakers can fix it. In fact, nearly half of the US population now lives in a place that has addressed prison gerrymandering, but many states have failed to act.

We recently released a series of reports focused on states ripe for ending prison gerrymandering – Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Not only do these states have significantly prison-gerrymandered districts, but this problem has a significant impact on their Black, Native American, or Latino residents.

Prison gerrymandering impacts states differently, all in significant ways

Prison gerrymandering skews representation in all 14 states in the reports series, but the impact can look different across different states:

• Five of the states – Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Wyoming – have state legislative districts where prison populations account for over 10% of a district. That means 90 people who live in one of those districts are given as much political clout as 100 residents living elsewhere in the state.
• The realities of prison gerrymandering often run counter to common assumptions. For example, in North Carolina, prison gerrymandering disproportionately hurts rural residents. The state’s rural counties account for 35% of the state’s population, but 40% of people incarcerated in North Carolina come from rural counties. Prison gerrymandering shifts populations away from most rural communities in the state and concentrates power in the few areas that have amassed the largest prisons.
• In other states, prison gerrymandering problems can be less obvious. For example, Oregon is one of a few states that draw their districts so evenly that the population of the smallest and largest districts is less than 1% away from exact equality, but prison gerrymandering creates seven districts that fail to meet Oregon’s exacting standards for population equality.

Prison gerrymandering disproportionately harms Black, Native, and Latino residents

Across the 14 states, prison gerrymandering reduces the political power of nearly all residents by allowing a few districts with large correctional facilities to claim residents from all over the state. It also harms Black, Native, and Latino people — who are incarcerated at disproportionately high rates — in particular by enshrining the racial inequities of mass incarceration into the states’ legislative districts.

In Wyoming, for example, 80% of Black people, and 56% of Native people counted in State House District 2, were in correctional facilities that district.

Counting incarcerated people in the wrong place adds up. In the two most prison-gerrymandered districts in Texas alone over 13,000 Black people were counted in the wrong place. States that engage in prison gerrymandering effectively silence the voices of a large portion of their Black, Native, and Latino residents. Impacted local governments are already tackling prison gerrymandering on their own

The impact of prison gerrymandering is most clearly visible at the small scale: county and city governments

With smaller districts at the local government level, even a single facility can dramatically distort political representation.

In North Carolina, for example, the City of Lumberton has a City Council district where incarcerated people account for 47% of the district’s population. The result is that 53 people in that district have the same power as 100 people in the other seven city council districts.

Similarly, when Clay County in Kentucky drew its Fiscal Court Magistrate (county) districts, it included people incarcerated in a federal facility as if they were residents of the county. As a result, 55 people in that county district were given the same political power as 100 people in every other Clay County government district.

Given that prison gerrymandering has such a massive impact on local government districts, it’s no surprise that a record number of city councils and county commissions tackled the problem after the 2020 Census. Among the 14 states we examined, local governments in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and North Carolina are leading the way on ending prison gerrymandering, even when states have failed to act.

In states across the country, local governments have found that adjusting redistricting data to avoid prison gerrymandering is quite easy. However, the states can and should provide a more efficient and complete solution for their local governments.

The patchwork of prison gerrymandering reform spans rural, urban, and partisan divides

Over the course of the last few decades, over 200 local governments and a growing number of states have implemented policies on their own to fix this problem. Now roughly half of all U.S. residents now live in a city, county, or state that has ended prison gerrymandering, representing rural, urban, blue, red, and purple parts of the country.

Local governments that reject prison gerrymandering are mostly in rural counties (where the prisons are located). And states that have ended prison gerrymandering include deep “blue” states like California, “purple” states like Maine and Pennsylvania, and deep “red” states like Montana — where prison gerrymandering-reform legislation received wide bipartisan support.

More states need to join the growing movement to end prison gerrymandering

Adjusting redistricting data to avoid prison gerrymandering is now a well-tested strategy with a proven track record. In fact, the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures called this effort “the fastest-growing trend in redistricting.” States can now confidently pass legislation to count incarcerated people at home for redistricting purposes. Over a dozen states have already been successful in these efforts, paving the way for the 14 states in our reports series to follow in their footsteps.

And prison gerrymandering isn’t limited to the states highlighted in these 14 reports. It also remains a serious problem in states such as New Hampshire, Mississippi, Arkansas, and South Carolina, for example. Any state taking action now will have the benefit of refining its approach based on lessons learned by states that have gone through the process before. And it is easier than ever for states to act; even the Census Bureau is starting to acknowledge the problem and help.

2030 may seem far away, but other states have learned that the earlier that reforms are put in place, the less expensive, easier to produce, and more accurate the final redistricting data becomes. In fact, several states that passed prison gerrymandering reforms in past decades – California, Illinois, and Nevada – have continued to improve the process, taking advantage of the early part of the decade to update their data gathering procedures, leaving them ready well ahead of Census time.

Every state has a different approach to ending prison gerrymandering, but as a practical matter, this model bill, prepared by a coalition of civil rights, voting rights, and criminal justice organizations, is a great place to start. It provides clear guidance on how this data should be collected, by whom, and how it will be used for the redistricting process.

The Census Bureau is unlikely to change its policies about how to count incarcerated people in time for the 2030 Census, meaning that unless states act quickly, they will once again be driven into prison-gerrymandering their legislative districts.