{"id":84329,"date":"2020-01-28T11:45:55","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T17:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=84329"},"modified":"2020-01-28T12:40:21","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T18:40:21","slug":"as-ward-redistricting-approaches-where-will-jail-inmates-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/as-ward-redistricting-approaches-where-will-jail-inmates-count\/","title":{"rendered":"As ward redistricting approaches, where will jail inmates count?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

When Chicago politicians redrew the 24th Ward in 2011, it contained a notable addition \u2014 a narrow, hook-like appendage that extended over a mile south, widening at the bottom to include the Cook County Jail.<\/p>\n

As a result, jail inmates accounted for approximately one in six people in the new 24th Ward.<\/p>\n

The City Council draws ward boundaries every 10 years based on the U.S. census, which counts jail inmates as residents of the place they are incarcerated at. On April 1, 2010 \u2014 the last Census Day \u2014 9,633 people were held in the Cook County Jail. The following year, wards were redrawn with around 54,000 people each.<\/p>\n

Even though the Cook County Jail\u2019s population has dropped precipitously in the past decade, it still holds more than 5,500 inmates on average. With the 2020 census coming up this year, the question remains how the jail population will factor into next year’s redistricting.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The 24th Ward, before and after the 2011-2012 ward redistricting. Its boundaries were extended to include the Cook County Jail population. (Graphic by Joel Jacobs\/Medill; City of Chicago data)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI think it’s ridiculous to count jail populations in redistricting,\u201d said 12th Ward Ald. George Cardenas, who was first elected in 2003 when the 12th Ward contained the jail.<\/p>\n

He also said the current map was unfair to residents living in the narrow strip that leads to the jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re not being represented as they should be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The last ward redistricting, in 2011-2012, was a contentious process that included months of closed-door negotiations.<\/p>\n

Changing demographics became a driving issue \u2014 the city\u2019s black population had declined sharply, while the Hispanic population had increased.<\/p>\n

In the end, the number of majority black wards fell by one, while the number of majority Hispanic wards increased by three. The 24th Ward retained its black majority after redistricting, with some help from the jail population.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inmates come from all over the county, the majority are African American,\u201d said Cardenas, whose ward has a Hispanic majority. \u201cAnd in the last redistricting, that’s the reason why [the 24th Ward is] drawn that way, because it was used to augment population data on the West Side.\u201d Cardenas voted to approve the redistricted map.<\/p>\n

Ami Gandhi, senior counsel at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, disagreed with the redistricting practices. \u201cTo count them in the jail in order to preserve black majority district is posing a false choice because individuals of color and all individuals should be counted accurately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ald. Michael Scott, Jr., who has represented the 24th Ward since 2015, declined interview requests. But Scott\u2019s chief of staff, Michael Halbert, emphasized that the ward was drawn legally and said that they would follow any changes in the law.<\/p>\n

Nationally, there has been a push to end the practice of counting prisoners as residents of the prison where they are held, also known as prison gerrymandering. This practice tends to give additional political clout to more rural, whiter areas that contain prisons at the expense of urban, predominantly minority communities that have been disproportionately affected by mass incarceration.<\/p>\n

Several states have passed bills ending prison gerrymandering, and a similar bill has been introduced repeatedly in the Illinois House (most recently as H.B. 0203<\/a>), although it has faced significant political hurdles<\/a>. But these reforms generally exclude jails, which tend to be smaller in rural areas and hold people from the local area<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another major difference between jails and prisons: Most people in jail can vote, since they have not been convicted of a felony.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters inside Cook County Jail register and vote with the address associated with home,\u201d said Jen Dean, deputy director of Chicago Votes, which hosts monthly voter drives at Cook County Jail. \u201cThe jail location is only a temporary address\u2014it is not their home residence.\u201d<\/p>\n

This gives inmates a sort of dual political identity. This March, an inmate could vote in the primary election using the address they associate with home. But if they\u2019re still in jail in April, the 2020 census will count them as a resident of the jail.<\/p>\n

Gandhi said that jail systems typically have information about inmates\u2019 permanent home addresses, which could be used to more equitably count inmates who come from neighborhoods outside the ward where the jail is located.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe political voice of people in those neighborhoods should not be diluted in any way just because they unfortunately have a high number of people who are ensnared in our flawed criminal justice system,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Photo at top: The 24th Ward before and after the 2011-2012 redistricting. (Graphic by Joel Jacobs\/Medill; City of Chicago data)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Joel Jacobs Medill Reports When Chicago politicians redrew the 24th Ward in 2011, it contained a notable addition \u2014 a narrow, hook-like appendage that extended over a mile south, widening at the bottom to include the Cook County Jail. As a result, jail inmates accounted for approximately one in six people in the new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":673,"featured_media":84344,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2951,30,4892],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-interest","category-politicsnational-security","category-public-affairs","category-winter-2020"],"yoast_head":"\nAs ward redistricting approaches, where will jail inmates count? - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/as-ward-redistricting-approaches-where-will-jail-inmates-count\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"As ward redistricting approaches, where will jail inmates count? - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Joel Jacobs Medill Reports When Chicago politicians redrew the 24th Ward in 2011, it contained a notable addition \u2014 a narrow, hook-like appendage that extended over a mile south, widening at the bottom to include the Cook County Jail. 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