Prison Redistricting: So What’s the Cost?
Saturday, June 05, 2010
In early March, the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony regarding the state-by-state movement to stop counting prisoners as residents of the prison towns that incarcerate them. Since then, Maryland became the first state to count prisoners in their communities rather than cell blocks, and local advocates await the Senate Judiciary to hold a hearing on the matter.
Allan Fung (mayor of Cranston) recently relented his opposition to the bill, provided it does not affect funding-based calculations. According to Prison Policy Initiative, only one funding formula is population based: Public Service Corporation Tax. By losing 4000 “residents.” Cranston stands to lose .18% of this $18 million payment, which is $34,000. A little less than the cost of one prisoner at the ACI.
RI has the advantage of excellent data, which fueled my original report in January. The ACI Director of Operations recently told me that providing the last known addresses of all their prisoners on April 1st would not be a challenge. We have one Senate district (Hannah Gallo) and two House districts (Majority Leader Nick Mattiello and Peter Palumbo). Mattiello supports the bill, which would also serve to balance out Cranston’s wards, as25% of Ward 6 calls prison their home.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTDelegate Joseline Pena-Melnyk had an unfairly bloated district in Maryland, yet led the successful fight to create fair representation. She is willing to come to RI for the hearing, as will members of other prominent organizations. As Dale Ho of NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. puts it: this “artificially inflates population numbers, and thus, political influence, in districts where prisons are located, at the expense of voters in all other districts.” A short clip from a new film simplifies the issue in a town where a man won with two votes.
What if nothing is done? The cities are losing population. Districts that lose people need to gain territory to make up for that. With the bulk of prisoners hailing from our capital city, the districts of Harold Metts, Juan Pichardo, and Paul Jabour (for example) would likely need to creep out into Cranston districts to gain people... and everyone would ripple further towards those places where housing construction has occurred over the past ten years; and where one doesn’t see ablight of boarded up homes. Oddly, this bill would provide some protection for the status quo by repatriating people to the cities, and avoiding possibly the most prison-subsidized state legislative district in the nation.
Those contacting their legislators should referenceH 7833 (Almeida) and S2452 (Metts; co-sponsored by Goodwin, Jabour, Perry, and Pichardo).
Bruce Reilly is an organizer with Direct Action for Rights and Equality, 340 Lockwood St., Providence. He focuses on prison and criminal justice issues, and writes a blog, Lockdown Lowdown, and is author of NewJack’s Guide to The Big House.
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