http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/news/2012/04/10/new-jim-crow/
Prison-based
gerrymandering in Michelle Alexander’s The...
Prison-based
gerrymandering in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow
In
a recent op-ed, Professor
Jess Rigelhaupt argues that the Obama administration needs to prioritize ending
mass incarceration. He draws on Michelle Alexander’s powerful arguments about
how mass incarceration fuels racial inequality in Alexander’s new book, The New Jim Crow. Both
Professor Rigelhaupt and Professor Alexander point to the problem of
prison-based gerrymandering in state legislative districts as an example.
As
Professor Alexander explains on page 188:
Under
the usual-residence rule, the Census Bureau counts imprisoned individuals as
residents of the jurisdiction in which they are incarcerated. Because most new
prison construction occurs in predominantly white, rural areas, white
communities benefit from inflated population totals at the expense of the
urban, overwhelmingly minority communities from which the prisoners come. This
has enormous consequences for the redistricting process. White rural
communities that house prisons wind up with more people in state legislatures
representing them, while poor communities of color lose representatives because
it appears their population has decreased. This policy is disturbingly
reminiscent of the three-fifths clause in the original Constitution, which
enhanced the political clout of slaveholding states by including 60 percent of
slaves in the population base for calculating Congressional seats and electoral
votes, even through they could not vote.
Her
book provides a comprehensive picture of how mass incarceration is jeopardizing
our democratic system and our wellbeing as a nation.
And
if you’re interested in learning more about the parallels between prison-based
gerrymandering and the infamous three-fifths clause, check out John Drake’s new
journal article, “Locked
Up and Counted Out: Bringing an End to Prison-based Gerrymandering,” or my blog
post
about prison-based gerrymandering in Wisconsin.
No comments:
Post a Comment