NJ Prisoners May Play Key Role In Redistricting: Here’s Why

NEW JERSEY — New Jersey is changing the way it counts prison inmates. And as the official towns of residence shift for tens of thousands of people in jail, it’s expected to shake things up in legislative and school districts across the state, a report says.

Earlier this month, New Jersey passed a state law sponsored by Democratic lawmakers and signed by Gov. Phil Murphy. As a result, people in prison will be counted at their last known address – not the jail where they’re incarcerated.

It’s a key policy change that could shake up redistricting efforts across the state, according to a study from New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP).

Here’s the deal, according to the NJPP:

“Previously, people who are incarcerated were counted as residents of their facility, but this produced distortions in population and electoral representation. This practice is commonly referred to as ‘prison gerrymandering,’ because it resembles other gerrymandering methods that manipulate electoral boundaries to advance the political power of one group over another. With prison gerrymandering, communities where prisons and jails were built receive outsize representation based on their incarcerated population. Conversely, communities that have been disproportionately harmed by mass incarceration have had their populations artificially lowered by their incarcerated population – even though that population will inevitably require services, infrastructure and representation upon their return.”

Want to see an example of prison gerrymandering in action? Look to Maurice River Township in Cumberland County, the NJPP says, which is home to both Bayside State Prison and the Southern State Correctional Facility.

The township had a population of 6,218 in the 2020 Census. But nearly half of its population – about 3,034 residents – were incarcerated. That means for the purposes of redistricting, the township’s population was nearly doubled, inflating its political representation at the expense of the communities where the people who are incarcerated originally came from.

• See related article: NJ's Electoral Maps Will Be Redrawn This Fall (What That Means)

How will the new law affect the final redistricting population counts in New Jersey? Right now, it’s tough to pin down the exact numbers, the NJPP said. But based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s redistricting file, it’s possible to see where incarcerated persons would have been counted under the old system.

According to the NJPP, the Congressional districts most likely to be impacted by the end of prison gerrymandering will be:

• Congressional District 2, with 9,164 people who are incarcerated
• Congressional District 3, with 7,455 people who are incarcerated
• Congressional District 10, with 9,661 people who are incarcerated

Meanwhile, the state legislative districts most likely to be impacted by the end of prison gerrymandering will be:

• Legislative District 29, with 9,349 people who are incarcerated
• Legislative District 12, with 6,650 people who are incarcerated
• Legislative District 1, with 4,245 people who are incarcerated
• Legislative District 3, with 4,245 people who are incarcerated
• Legislative District 15, with 3,427 people who are incarcerated

Any redistricting shifts will likely trickle down to the municipal level, where even small changes can make big ripples, according to the NJPP, which offered Newark as an example:

“Newark’s new 2020 Census count is 311,549 people, yielding ward sizes of roughly 62,309 people for each of the city’s five wards. Within Newark’s current East Ward boundaries, more than 8,000 people were counted as incarcerated in the 2020 Census, representing almost 13 percent of an average ward. If even a fraction of those populations is moved to other cities or wards in Newark, the boundary lines of the East Ward will likely have to expand to ensure that the population respects ‘one-person-one-vote’ principles.”

Supporters of the new law include several people who have spent time in prison themselves.

In June, Ron Pierce – a former inmate who recently regained his right to vote – said that prison-based gerrymandering is a modern-day form of the infamous “Three-Fifths Compromise,” an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention over the counting of slaves in determining a state's total population.

“This has no place in a democracy,” said Pierce, who pushed for the new law as a member of the Newark-based New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

• See related article: Thousands Of Former NJ Prison Inmates Can Now Register To Vote
• See related article: Inspiring Videos From NJ Ex-Inmates: 'Voting Changed Our Lives'

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