PRISON GERRYMANDERING - USING PRISONERS TO ARTIFICIALLY DILUTE POLITICAL POWER

Gerrymandering - legally defined as "An unfair method adopted by a political party in control of the legislature, whereby the boundaries of election districts are altered and arranged as to prevent a majority vote in such districts in favor of the opposing political party." As a practical matter, it means fixing the boundary lines of legislative districts so as to give an unfair advantage to one political party.

Based on U.S. Census records, the state legislature creates districts throughout the state based on population records. College students, military personnel, boarding schools and temporary residents are counted by the Census Bureau at their home address, but in Idaho, state prisoners are counted at the address of the prison - giving some districts (particularly Idaho Legislative Districts 14 - 22) inflated population numbers.

Because state prisoners are not allowed to vote, and may never again be allowed to vote after having been convicted, it is rare that any state Representative (or Senator) will even address complaints or concerns directly from prisoners because they are not viable [or valuable] constituents. Prisoners are however subject to taxation, laws and regulations stemming from their legislative actions.

Prison gerrymandering is not new, nor is it confined to Idaho. The artificial increase in certain legislative districts often disenfranchise poor and ethnic citizens where prisons are located in rural areas. In Idaho, the greatest concentration of state prisons is located just south of Boise (with a physical address in Kuna) in Ada county, one of the largest civilian and prisoner population areas in the state.

If the thousands of prisoners housed at the Idaho Department of Corrections' South Boise Complex, the ISCC, all the Community Release Centers and other IDOC facilities dotting this area of the state were to be listed at their home addresses, the legislative districting map would be significantly different in Idaho. Further, various appropriations to those districts (based on population) would also be affected.

The original fault of this prison gerrymandering is not with the state, it's actually the fault of the federal Census Bureau. State officials and politicians have simply exploited the loophole for personal and political gain.

Thousands of Idaho prisoners are from out of state, or Native Americans who, prior to incarceration, lived on recognized reservations. Hundreds (if not thousands) more state prisoners are undocumented immigrants and others awaiting deportation. With such unfair political leverage gained by legislators in southwest Idaho using the incorrect data, there is not likely to be a change in the methods currently being used to define legislative districts in the state.

In 2023, the states of Illinois, Maine and Montana - joining 14 other states - passed laws to allow their state officials to adjust federal Census Bureau data to count prisoners as residents of communities where they lived prior to incarceration. Because the federal Census is conducted only once per decade, it would be another 6 or 7 years before the federal government could make any significant changes in the way [place] they count prisoners - even if they were so inclined to do so.

The Idaho Legislature, in cooperation with the Idaho Department of Correction can easily modify legislative districting data, as virtually every prisoner has a pre-incarceration address listed with the department, or in [IDOC prepared, court ordered] pre-sentence investigation reports, which the department has on file. The ability is there - now all that's left is the desire to make the changes.

By the way, is this whole gerrymandering scheme the reason that the IDOC is now referring to prisoners as "Residents" rather than Convicts, Inmates, or [most recently] Offenders? Maybe...