The Sophian

Issue date: 4/3/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Courtesy of Illinois Department of Corrections

After the publication of nine New York Times editorials praising his work, Peter Wagner and his organization, the Prison Policy Initiative, seem to have moved far beyond the confines of Northampton. In a part of a lecture series put on by Smith's student organization Students for Social Justice and Institutional Change, students and community members recently had the opportunity to hear Wagner's presentation of his research.

Wagner, the executive director of the Northampton-based Prison Policy Initiative, has made a name for himself and major progress through his study of the skewed census data based on the way in which incarcerated persons are counted. This may not seem like an especially important or influential mistake; however, Wagner and many others argue that the census system's flaws undermine the principle of "one person, one vote." The phenomenon is often paralleled to the idea of a modern day three-fifths clause in effect.

Wagner's study focuses mainly on upstate New York, where the census bureau counts prison inmates as "residents" of their prisons, rather than of the areas in which they chose to live before being incarcerated. This, as Wagner seeks to prove, greatly influences the composition of the legislative districts: seven districts in upstate New York would be considered too small if it were not for their immense prison population.

Showing his penchant for numbers and statistics, Wagner revealed to his audience that 21 countries nationally have at least 21 percent of their so-called population detained in correctional facilities. This thus distorts and, Wagner believes, gerrymanders the districting borders, which are re-drawn every 10 years.

Since 65 percent of New York prisoners are from New York City, the fact that prisons are often located in rural areas provides an immediate and evident contradiction. Wagner found that the actual residents in these seven counties of upstate New York have benefited from an inflated voting power, while the urban voters have lost power.

A New York Times opinions piece, entitled "Phantom Voters, Thanks to the Census," praises Wagner's work by noting that "the prison counties offend the principle of 'one person, one vote,' while siphoning off political power from the home districts to which the inmates will return as soon as they are released."

"It's breaking a fundamental part of our society," Wagner expressed to the filled classroom in Seelye on Thursday, March 27 in his lecture entitled "Prisoners of the Census." "But I realized that this was fixable…counties have the power to change the census data."

Though the inconsistency may not seem hugely influential, Wagner cites many statistics, both in his lecture and on the Initiative's Web site, PrisonPolicy.org, to change the skeptic's mentality. For example, there are more than 2 million people incarcerated in the American prison system today, and New York City alone loses the power of 43,740 residents to the districts of upstate legislators.

The Prison Policy Initiative, according to their mission statement, "documents the disastrous impact of mass incarceration on individuals, communities and the national welfare" and "produces accessible and innovative research to empower the public to participate in creating better criminal justice policy."

Wagner's lecture was the first in a lecture series entitled "The Scope of Incarceration and The Criminal (In)justice System," hosted by the Smith College Prison Reform Coalition, a working group of Students for Social Justice and Institutional Change.

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