How Best to do Prison Population Data Reallocation, i.e., How Best to Mitigate Prison Gerrymandering?

Abstract

We review the legal and practical complexities in doing prisoner population data reallocation and discuss differences in the practices in different states and jurisdictions. We emphasize that there are two key complications. (1) how to handle prison populations that do not have an in-state past address, and (2) potential legal differences between how prison populations are to be treated for state legislative (or local) redistricting as opposed to congressional redistricting. We propose a best practices rule.