New York Votes to End Prison-Based Gerrymandering

Prison reformers are celebrating today, now that New York's state senate has voted to end prison-based gerrymandering in the Empire State. Passed as part of the state's long overdue budget, the legislation is currently awaiting Governor Paterson's signature.

For years, activists have worked to end the distortion in political power that results when states count prisoners as residents of the counties in which they're incarcerated, rather than their home (usually urban) neighborhoods. Here at Change.org, hundreds of readers helped push this decision, by urging New York lawmakers to join the growing movement to end prison-based gerrymandering.

As we've reported here before, both Maryland and Delaware have recently passed similar laws (Delaware's is still awaiting the Governor's signature). New York is the third state to join a very select group, and we're still waiting for action in 47 other states. But New York's movement on this issue is especially significant. Why?

It's not just that the Empire State is the largest state to have taken decisive action so far, or that New York has traditionally been a trend-setter on a number of policy issues. According to the Prison Policy Institute:

• Seven of the current New York State Senate districts only exist because they claim incarcerated people as residents.
• Fully 40% of one Oneida County legislative district is incarcerated, while 50% of a Rome City Council ward is incarcerated, giving the people who live next to the prisons more influence than people in other districts or wards.

Once the numbers are corrected, New York's state senate districts will have to be merged, and upstate New York's political calculus will have to be seriously recalibrated. (Though prior to the law's passage, several upstate districts were already correcting their Census numbers to reflect their large prison populations, at this point, the rules will be made uniform statewide.)

Let's hope that New York's latest move can embolden other state legislatures to likewise take action. With a few more states, we can turn these victories into a broader movement, and ultimately into a new status quo.

Photo Credit: mandamonium