Illinois’ HB 3653, a major criminal justice reform package, contains provisions ending prison gerrymandering for state legislative districts. The final language passed both the Senate and House today.
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With the COVID-19 infection rate in prisons four times that of the general U.S. population, public health and medical experts are urging prisons to reduce their populations to save lives.
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After the 2010 redistricting cycle, the California legislature passed a collection of bills—AB 420 (2011), AB 1986 (2012), AB 2172 (2018), and AB 849 (2019)—that sought to end prison gerrymandering at all levels of government.
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Why do bank regulators care about the private prison industry? Most people would probably respond “they don’t,” and that answer would have been correct until a few months ago when the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) proposed a troublesome new rule on bank lending.
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In the wake of the recently passed stimulus bill, many Americans are complaining about the paltry direct payments of $600. Without detracting from Congress’s failure to support the millions of people who need help, it is worth pausing to acknowledge one unexpected victory in the bill: It contains no prohibition on stimulus payments for incarcerated people.
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Who should be counted for redistricting purposes? Since the 2010 redistricting cycle, numerous events — from the Supreme Court’s decision in Evenwel v. Abbott to President Trump’s efforts to inquire into citizenship status in the 2020 Census — have drawn attention to this important question.
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On a given day last year, an estimated55,000 to 62,500 people had spent the previous 15 days in solitary confinement in state and federal prisons, often in cells smaller than a parking space.
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Despite a record number of new COVID-19 cases in prisons this month, some state departments of correction are already starting to roll back necessary suspensions of medical co-pays.
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Before the pandemic, nine state prison systems and the BOP were operating at 100% capacity or more. These prison systems were holding more people than their facilities were designed to house.
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Building momentum against prison gerrymandering
Prison gerrymandering can feel like a complex, political quirk. It does not help that the root of the problem is the Census Bureau’s interpretation of its sometimes-arcane “residence rules”.
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