The Appeal’s Daniel Nichanian Reports
A new law ends prison gerrymandering in legislative redistricting. New Jersey will continue to disenfranchise incarcerated people.
Most states draw political maps by counting incarcerated people at their prison’s location, rather than at their most recent address. Known as prison gerrymandering, this practice shifts political power from cities and more diverse communities, which suffer the brunt of mass incarceration, to the disproportionately white and rural areas where prisons are often located.
New Jersey is ending prison gerrymandering in legislative redistricting, the seventh state to do so.