Politicians Push Census to Use Prisoners' Last Known Address
As Democrats in the New York State Senate strive to squeak out a long sought-after majority in the upper house of the legislature, they might just get help from tens of thousands of convicts from Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx.
The U.S. Census Bureau counts the state's 71,466 prisoners as "residents" of their cells upstate, inflating the populations of small towns such as Malone, Chateaugay and Dannemora, where the prisons are located.
It's not just an academic problem for data nerds, according to Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based nonpartisan research group that has taken the lead in pushing the census bureau to count prisoners at their last known address. That's because all those city people puffing up the populations of small towns in the north add up to an entire extra senate district, and help account for the generation-long Republican hold on the state senate. EILEEN MARKEY in City Limits Weekly.