{"id":5084934,"date":"2016-03-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ctlatinonews.com\/op-ed-prison-gerrymandering-is-unfair-undemocratic-and-wrong-and-we-can-fix-it\/"},"modified":"2016-03-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T04:00:00","slug":"op-ed-prison-gerrymandering-is-unfair-undemocratic-and-wrong-and-we-can-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/2016\/03\/31\/op-ed-prison-gerrymandering-is-unfair-undemocratic-and-wrong-and-we-can-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Op-Ed: Prison Gerrymandering Is Unfair, Undemocratic and Wrong \u2013 And We Can Fix It!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> Photo credit: ubaltciclfellows.wordpress.com<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWerner Oyanadel<br \/>\nSpecial to CTLatinoNews.com<br \/>\nIt is more than anything a question of fairness.\u00a0 When the state divides its 169 communities into 151 districts to elect members to the House of Representatives and 36 districts for State Senate seats, it is done based on population.\u00a0 Each House district has roughly the same number of people, and each Senate district is roughly equivalent as well.<br \/>\nHowever, in our state a practice exists that undermines the fairness of this process.\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s because a handful of towns in Connecticut, where major correctional institutions are located count those who are incarcerated as residents of their communities, which inflates the local population with people who are not constituents.\u00a0 \u00a0In fact, these &#8220;residents&#8221;, who are eligible to vote must actually vote by absentee ballot in their home community \u2013 not the town claiming them as part of its population.<br \/>\nThe consequence of this prison gerrymandering creates false information for the U.S. Census Bureau which then uses this data to determine House and Senate district lines.\u00a0\u00a0 The prison population artificially increases the political power of the towns that count the prison inmates as residents at the expense of cities and towns where these incarcerated people had previously lived, which tend to be urban communities &#8211; contrary to the principle of equal representation.<br \/>\nThis prison gerrymandering practice is not only unfair and undemocratic, but a departure from the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s one person, one vote mandate.<br \/>\nIt has been pointed out by the executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative, Peter Wagner, that &#8220;in Connecticut, the population incarcerated in state prisons is almost large enough to be a state house district by itself.\u00a0 Although this population comes from all over the state, disproportionately from the state\u2019s urban cities, as it is reported now to the Census Bureau, almost two-thirds of the state\u2019s prison population is credited to just five towns (Cheshire, East Lyme, Enfield, Somers and Suffield).&#8221;<br \/>\nThe basic unfairness of this system, and its potential to skew elections and representation, is obvious.\u00a0 In fact, Cheshire and Enfield have long recognized the inequity and impact, and therefore do not count prison populations in determining local districts for their municipal elections.\u00a0 We should demand nothing less at the state level.<br \/>\nBeyond that, this practice of prison gerrymandering conflicts with Connecticut law, which explicitly states that &#8220;No person shall be deemed to have lost his residence in any town by reason of his absence therefrom in any institution maintained by the state.&#8221;\u00a0 Yet, the current legislative district lines do just that.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThere are inconsistencies at every turn.\u00a0 In Connecticut, some individuals in prison retain the right to vote \u2013 for example, if they are awaiting trial or are serving time for misdemeanors. For voting purposes, they are not permitted to claim residence in the prison, but must vote absentee in their home communities. The contradiction could not be more glaring.<br \/>\nWagner notes that &#8220;there is also a clear racial justice issue at stake: African-Americans are nine times as likely to be incarcerated as White people in Connecticut, and Latinos five times as likely. But the Census Bureau counts the incarcerated population as residents of those mostly-white towns, and this creates a serious inequity.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe system is broken, and ought to be fixed now.\u00a0 The repair begins with the passage of legislation such as Raised SB No. 459 which is currently under consideration in Connecticut \u2013 as four other states (New York, California, Maryland and Delaware) have already done \u2013 to count prisoners in their home communities, rather than the cells in which they temporarily reside.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>Werner Oyanadel is Executive Director of LPRAC \u2013 LPRAC is a nonpartisan policy agency within the legislative branch of government created in 1994 by an act of the Connecticut Legislature (i.e., P.A. 94-152, amended by P.A. 03-229 and amended by P.A. 09-07). Under Public Act 09-07, LPRAC consists of 21 appointed community leaders that are mandated to advise the Connecticut General Assembly and the Governor on policies that foster progress in the Latino communities residing in Connecticut.<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Werner Oyanadel Special to CTLatinoNews.com It is more than anything a question of fairness.\u00a0 When the state divides its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[736,989,990],"tags":[1065],"ppma_author":[565],"class_list":["post-5084934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ct-opinion","category-ma-opinion","category-ri-opinion","tag-hispanic-inmateslpracprison-gerrymanderingwerenr-oyanadel"],"acf":[],"mb":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jermaine Smith","author_link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/author\/jay\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"&nbsp; Werner Oyanadel Special to CTLatinoNews.com It is more than anything a question of fairness.\u00a0 When the state divides its [&hellip;]","authors":[{"term_id":565,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"news-editor","display_name":"News Editor","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"mfb_rest_fields":["title","uagb_featured_image_src","uagb_author_info","uagb_comment_info","uagb_excerpt","authors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5084934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5084934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5084934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5084934"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5084934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}