{"id":83800,"date":"2019-12-19T13:53:24","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T19:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=83800"},"modified":"2019-12-20T16:09:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T22:09:05","slug":"how-prisoners-count-the-politics-of-prison-gerrymandering-in-illinois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/how-prisoners-count-the-politics-of-prison-gerrymandering-in-illinois\/","title":{"rendered":"How prisoners count: the politics of prison gerrymandering in Illinois"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Joel Jacobs<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

In Illinois, each person\u2019s vote is not counted equally. A single vote for a state representative in Cook County is likely to wield less influence than one in Randolph County downstate.<\/p>\n

Why? Because Randolph County is located in Illinois House District 116, which is home to the Menard and Pinckneyville prisons. They hold about 4,500 inmates, half of whom were sentenced from Cook County, around 300 miles away.<\/p>\n

These prisoners cannot vote, but they are counted as residents of the 116th<\/sup> District by the census, giving each voter in the district a bit more power. During the last round of redistricting, each Illinois House district was drawn to include approximately 109,000 people based on census counts, meaning that prisoners account for more than one in twenty-five residents of Illinois House District 116.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is called prison gerrymandering, and it affects local governments, state House and Senate districts, and federal congressional districts. The smaller the legislative district, the more significantly an incarcerated population could skew political power.<\/p>\n

\u201cResidents in Chicago are actually having their political power deflated,\u201d said Kasey Henricks, a professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee, who co-authored a 2017 report<\/a> on racial inequality in Chicago. Henricks\u2019 report found that the political power of predominantly white downstate communities is \u201cartificially inflated\u201d at the expense of predominantly minority districts impacted by mass incarceration.<\/p>\n

According to data from the Illinois Department of Corrections 38,920 people were in state prisons in Illinois as of Sept. 30. Almost half, 17,773, were sentenced from Cook County, but there are no state prisons in Cook County. Those incarcerated are disproportionately black, while prisons are often built in rural, whiter communities.<\/p>\n

Prison gerrymandering would likely be eliminated if the census counted prisoners based on their residences prior to incarceration. However, the Census Bureau is not planning to change its practice for 2020, despite calls to do so from voting rights activists.<\/p>\n

Without federal action, the choice has fallen to the states. Several states, including New York, California, Washington and Maryland, have passed laws changing how prisoners are counted. In Illinois, however, action has been limited.<\/p>\n

Some counties and municipalities in Illinois have moved to exclude incarcerated populations when drawing local electoral districts, since large prisons can have a dramatic effect on county board and city council elections.<\/p>\n

In the Illinois General Assembly, both Republicans and Democrats have prisons in their districts and therefore benefit politically from prison gerrymandering, resulting in tough political hurdles for statewide reform.<\/p>\n

The politics of prison gerrymandering<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For almost a decade, state Rep. La Shawn Ford has been trying to get a bill passed to end prison gerrymandering in Illinois. His No Representation Without Population Act<\/a> would require the Illinois Department of Corrections to keep track of the addresses of prisoners prior to incarceration, and then use those addresses when counting populations during redistricting, which occurs every 10 years following the census.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way the law has been carried out all these years has clearly been a mistake,\u201d said Ford, a Democrat who represents the 8th<\/sup> District, which includes part of Chicago\u2019s West Side and its suburbs. In 1887, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled that a prison is not an official residence, stating that \u201ca person confined in prison under the judgment and sentence of a court does not thereby change his residence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford also sees prison gerrymandering as an injustice because prisoners are not truly part of the community where they are counted. \u201cWhen those citizens that are incarcerated look for help, they call people that represent them in their home districts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The debate over prison gerrymandering has been framed as a partisan battle<\/a>, with Democrats advocating for reform, and Republicans opposed. Rural areas with prisons tend to be represented by Republicans, and, in Illinois, about 74% of state prisoners are held in House districts controlled by Republicans.<\/p>\n