STATEMENT: On the Legislative Reapportionment Commission Vote to Exempt Certain Prisoners from End of Prison Gerrymandering in Pennsylvania
HARRISBURG (September 21, 2021) – Better PA Executive Director Deborah Rose Hinchey and Robert Saleem Holbrook, Executive Director of the Abolitionist Law Center made the following statement regarding today’s Legislative Reapportionment Commission vote on a resolution to exempt prisoners with a sentence of more than ten years to be counted at the facility at which they’re incarcerated for the purposes of drawing state legislative district maps:
DEBORAH ROSE HINCHEY:
“We are disappointed that the Legislative Reapportionment Commission (LRC) today voted to weaken their historic move to end prison gerrymandering in Pennsylvania by requiring prisoners scheduled to be incarcerated for the next ten years or more to be counted at the facility at which they’re incarcerated, and not at their last-known address, for the purposes of drawing state legislative districts. In an interview yesterday, Leader Kim Ward identified reinstating prison gerrymandering in Pennsylvania as one of her top priorities for this fall. That’s not a typo or an overstatement. As was clearly outlined by the LRC General Counsel and LRC Chairman Mark Nordenberg when the original resolution was passed, ending prison gerrymandering as the LRC voted to do was both legally and functionally acceptable.
“However, with today’s vote on a second resolution related to prison gerrymandering, the LRC has created a functional flaw in ending prison gerrymandering. Execution of this resolution would be arbitrary because the expected minimum time served in a prison for incarcerated people is never certain. An incarcerated person is often released prior to their originally-listed minimum sentence time for various reasons, including, but not limited to: good behavior, completion of certain rehabilitation programs, re-sentencing, commutation, and acquittal on appeal. And, prisoners are often transferred from prison to prison during incarceration. In essence, a dataset that centers on current minimum sentences for temporarily-incarcerated Pennsylvanians should not be relied on to make determinations about future incarcerated status in our prisons.
“Making what is functionally an arbitrary delineation between one group of incarcerated people and another for the purposes of drawing legislative districts also perpetuates the problem highlighted at previous LRC public hearings by families affected by prison gerrymandering – a lack of adequate constituent services for the group of incarcerated people that would still be counted in their prison district. As these families testified to, getting services from state representatives for temporarily incarcerated citizens is complicated and, often, difficult. This is a problem for incarcerated individuals, their families, and for legislators. Passing this resolution would make this problem even worse, as it would create separate categories of inmates that families and legislators would have to navigate in order to determine responsibility for services.
“Make no mistake – if one of Leader Ward’s top priorities for this fall was continuing prison gerrymandering in Pennsylvania, she has failed. And while today’s vote complicates the process, Pennsylvania is still ending prison gerrymandering.”
ROBERT SALEEM HOLBROOK:
"We are profoundly disappointed by the Commission’s decision to limit the progress it achieved by ending the illegal practice of prison-based gerrymandering. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution bars the Commonwealth from 'lessening the power of an individual's vote based on the geographical area in which the individual resides.' Yet the practice of prison-based gerrymandering does just that.
"Pennsylvania’s prison population comes disproportionately from its metropolitan areas, which are in turn home to Pennsylvania’s communities of color. By artificially inflating the voting power of legislative districts that contain prisons, where voters are more likely to be white, prison-based gerrymandering also lessens the voting power of those metropolitan areas. After we’ve made progress against this discriminatory and antidemocratic practice, now is not the time to go backwards."
DEBORAH ROSE HINCHEY:
“We are disappointed that the Legislative Reapportionment Commission (LRC) today voted to weaken their historic move to end prison gerrymandering in Pennsylvania by requiring prisoners scheduled to be incarcerated for the next ten years or more to be counted at the facility at which they’re incarcerated, and not at their last-known address, for the purposes of drawing state legislative districts. In an interview yesterday, Leader Kim Ward identified reinstating prison gerrymandering in Pennsylvania as one of her top priorities for this fall. That’s not a typo or an overstatement. As was clearly outlined by the LRC General Counsel and LRC Chairman Mark Nordenberg when the original resolution was passed, ending prison gerrymandering as the LRC voted to do was both legally and functionally acceptable.
“However, with today’s vote on a second resolution related to prison gerrymandering, the LRC has created a functional flaw in ending prison gerrymandering. Execution of this resolution would be arbitrary because the expected minimum time served in a prison for incarcerated people is never certain. An incarcerated person is often released prior to their originally-listed minimum sentence time for various reasons, including, but not limited to: good behavior, completion of certain rehabilitation programs, re-sentencing, commutation, and acquittal on appeal. And, prisoners are often transferred from prison to prison during incarceration. In essence, a dataset that centers on current minimum sentences for temporarily-incarcerated Pennsylvanians should not be relied on to make determinations about future incarcerated status in our prisons.
“Making what is functionally an arbitrary delineation between one group of incarcerated people and another for the purposes of drawing legislative districts also perpetuates the problem highlighted at previous LRC public hearings by families affected by prison gerrymandering – a lack of adequate constituent services for the group of incarcerated people that would still be counted in their prison district. As these families testified to, getting services from state representatives for temporarily incarcerated citizens is complicated and, often, difficult. This is a problem for incarcerated individuals, their families, and for legislators. Passing this resolution would make this problem even worse, as it would create separate categories of inmates that families and legislators would have to navigate in order to determine responsibility for services.
“Make no mistake – if one of Leader Ward’s top priorities for this fall was continuing prison gerrymandering in Pennsylvania, she has failed. And while today’s vote complicates the process, Pennsylvania is still ending prison gerrymandering.”
ROBERT SALEEM HOLBROOK:
"We are profoundly disappointed by the Commission’s decision to limit the progress it achieved by ending the illegal practice of prison-based gerrymandering. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution bars the Commonwealth from 'lessening the power of an individual's vote based on the geographical area in which the individual resides.' Yet the practice of prison-based gerrymandering does just that.
"Pennsylvania’s prison population comes disproportionately from its metropolitan areas, which are in turn home to Pennsylvania’s communities of color. By artificially inflating the voting power of legislative districts that contain prisons, where voters are more likely to be white, prison-based gerrymandering also lessens the voting power of those metropolitan areas. After we’ve made progress against this discriminatory and antidemocratic practice, now is not the time to go backwards."
