NEWSBY ELENA LAVARREDA

Mass incarceration is breaking our democracy. According to the often-cited PEW report, "One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008," over two million people -- or one in every 100 adults -- is locked behind bars. In 2007 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections, up from $11 billion 20 years before. Recidivism rates continue to stay the same, with about half of released inmates returning to jail within 3 years. There is growing public demand for criminal justice reform, but change is slow. One impediment to reform is barring people with felony convictions from the polls. Another subtle, yet equally damaging, way that mass incarceration puts its thumb on the scales of democracy is through the U.S. Census.

The U.S. Census counts prisoners where their bodies are located on Census day, not where they come from and where they will return, on average, 34 months later. This remains true even though prisoners cannot vote and they remain legal residents of the places they lived prior to incarceration.

Census counts are used to apportion political power at all levels of government. When states draw districts based on the Census Bureau's flawed counts, districts with prisons are afforded extra representation simply because the prison industry has a facility there. The practice of crediting thousands of disproportionately urban and minority men to other communities has staggering implications for modern democracy.