Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

by Stacey Abrams

Swing states like Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have seen their statewide elections become more competitive, but legislative lines disproportionately favor the GOP. In almost every state in the country, a perverse version of this mismatch between the population and voting power occurs when the incarcerated are counted in a process known as prison gerrymandering. In all but six states, the incarcerated residents are counted not in their home neighborhoods but in the penal institution. This means their communities have no access to the fiscal windfalls that could come from including them in the area count and no resources return to their hometowns. From the inception of the census, this has been the practice. As the argument goes, prisoners should be counted in the prison beds where they sleep, not in the houses where they lived before imprisonment. The consequence of that decision, however, is that the often struggling, under-resourced, and desperate communities where many of these men and women start never benefit from the investments that could help deter crime and poverty. Moreover, because only Maine and Vermont allow the incarcerated to vote, prisoners in every other state have no political voice. To put a finer point on it, America’s mass incarceration has led to thousands of black and Latino bodies from Democratic-leaning areas being counted in rural white communities that are typically Republican, where most of the penal facilities are located.