Update by Bruce:  Majority Leader Nicholas Mattiello (Cranston), says: "I'd be glad to have more people in my district who can actually vote for me."  Read todays BeloJo article.

Update by Brian: Joe Almeida's legislation to count those held in government custody for Census purposes as residents of their previous address before entering government custody will be heard tomorrow, March 9, at about 5pm.

Original Post (January 13, 2010): As everyone knows, 2010 is the year of the census.  The year we are counted where we live.  It is also the year nearly 5000 men, women, and children will be used to prop up State Senate District 27 , and House Districts 16 and 15; seats currently occupied by Hanna Gallo, Peter Palumbo, and Nicholas Mattielo, respectively.  This writer presumes that the individual facility locations would be the prisoners' "addresses," but if they were to count at one central DOC headquarters location, 40 Howard Avenue, this falls within District 15.  [The linked maps provide streets for the borders.]

District 15 (1845 people): Medium I Security 1028, Minimum Security 602, Both Women's Facilities 215 (they are currently moving into District 16), DOC headquarters;

District 16 (2627): Intake Service Center 1051, High Security 90, Training School 159, Medium II Security 345, Maximum Security 442, Eleanor Slater Hospital 240 (prisoners, geriatric, substance abuse, and others).  All numbers are for FY09.

The RI Black and Latino Caucus of State Legislators has looked into where these ACI prisoners and DCYF juveniles are counted, and were disappointed to find them adding to the political bulk of Cranston while draining away from (particularly) Providence, East Providence, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket..  Oddly enough, these higher-incarceration, urban areas are short on valuable resources regarding jobs and education- the primary tools for crime prevention and for re-entry.  This is precisely the type of political apportionment being drained into Cranston,  the site for punishment.

It would be interesting to run the numbers on registered voters in those districts, and see how they compare to others. Bills pending in New York, Texas, and Oregon would all adjust how their legislatures redistrict- modeling themselves on how Kansas
counts their military and student personnel.  A constitutional amendment is also pending in Wisconsin.

It is worth noting that at least one prison town, Gardner MA, does not count their prisoners as residents.  When the city of Gardner, MA last updated their districts in 2001, they were faced with the prospect of giving the residents on the eastern side of the city near the state prison extra influence over city affairs, or rejecting the flawed Census counts.  The City Council ruled that because the prisoners were not residents of Gardner but of other parts of the state, the prison population should be ignored when dividing up the population in to districts. Doing otherwise would have given each group of 8 people who live near the prison as much say over city affairs as every group of 10 residents elsewhere in the city.  It is unknown to this writer what formula is used within Cranston.

With roughly a million people in RI, a current House district would consist of roughly 13,000 people while each Senate district represents about 26,000.  In District 16, Peter Palumbo is currently representing about 10,000 free people and 3000 people whose welfare is not his concern, nor is the budget.  Considering his voting record (including a "No" on Probation Reform), he clearly is not representing his 2500 prisoners, probably none of whom gave him a campaign donation. Meanwhile, across town, Art Handy, Charlene Lima, and Robert Jacquard are on equal footing with their 13,000 free people each.   Rep. Nicholas Mattielo is in a similar scenario with his 1845 extra folks whose interests are being directly conflicted by their representative.

"Every urban prisoner counted as a rural resident decreases the number of "real" rural residents required for a rural district. As the number of real residents declines, the weight of a vote from a rural resident increases. This undemocratic effect is magnified by the fact that most "phantom" rural residents in a rural prison should have been counted in an urban area." writes Peter Wagner, as part of his detailed research.

In Bethel Park v. Stans, 449 F. 2d 575 (C.A. 3, 1971) the city of Philadelphia and a Pennsylvania congressman sued the Census Bureau for counting military personnel, students and prisoners at their temporary addresses instead of their home addresses, because the plaintiffs feared a loss of representation. The court stated that “Although a
state is entitled to the number of representatives in the House of Representatives as determined by the federal census, it is not required to use these census figures as a basis for apportioning its own legislature.” Bethel Park v. Stans, 449 F. 2d 575, 583 (C.A.3, 1971).

One would tend to think that the federal census is the authority on how a district is drawn, but jurisdictions are clearly allowed to modify their accounting.  In fact, when such an issue arose, the Supreme Court rejected Virginia’s argument that it was compelled to
use the Census Bureau’s assignment of residences to military personnel when drawing state legislative districts. Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S. 315, 331 (1973)

On December 16th, national Black leaders, including Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League and chairman of the US Census Advisory Committee, called on Washington to stop counting prisoners at the site of their cells rather than their communities.  Although clearly a national issue that severely affects places like New York City and Washington D.C., it is not a significant change within Rhode Island, where Jim Langevin and Patrick Kennedy share the state within a margin of error.  Although Langevin currently benefits from all the northern Rhode island prisoners, he also reps a portion of Providence- making the error a minor one.  However,
combining with a vast overcounting of White Americans who own multiple residences, the built in disappearance of Black and Hispanic Americans (from home communities to generally rural White communities) is a vast misdistribution of resources.  Particularly when those prison district politicians tend to have agendas directly in conflict with this chunk of their "constituency."
 
True to form, Rep. Palumbo has opened up the 2010 legislative session by introducing a bill that represents his district: H7046 would mandate all sex offenders register within 14 days of residency.  In a time of unemployment, foreclosure, and budget crisis, a businessman (food concessions) makes sex offenders his first order of business.  Rated "2nd safest" state in the nation by Motherhood Magazine, Palumbo has proposed laws to require GPS monitoring for life on lesser-level sex offenders.  One might think his work is not complete until all sex offenders are on GPS for life, further expanding the Prisons budget, and then naturally progress towards all released felons of any caliber.  Palumbo is on the Judiciary Committee, and a Joint Commission to Undertake a Comprehensive Study of Sex Offender Legislation (with Mattielo).  It is easy to run a campaign against sex offenders, as they have no advocates nor political representation.  

Palumbo has also sponsored e-verify legislation (2009-H5298) mandating state agencies (like DMV) serve as immigration enforcers, and making it a crime for a landlord to rent to undocumented families (punishable with prison time).  He is also on the Board of Directors for RI Victims Advocacy and Support Center.  Ironically, most crime victims reside in the urban districts such as Providence, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket, and Palumbo's district has a far lower crime rate.  His district actually represents the perpetrators, yet he is on no Boards representing their interests.

Sen. Gallo's record is far more diverse, including topics such as education, health care, and the environment, has also been a go-to player on Sex Offenders, and pushed to increase fines on domestic violence abusers.  Her district covers the entire complex, and she merely represents about 22,000 free people, and 4000 confined guests (17% of her district puts no political or economic pressure on her to advance their interests.)

But this debate has nothing to do with the ideological votes of the legislators now or in the future.

Considering it is widely acknowledged that the prison system disproportionately incarcerates non-White people (which should be no surprise when the State Police's own data shows a pattern of racial profiling), the transfer of voting power from Minority communities to a White community is a violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection (1 man 1 vote).  A class action lawsuit by residents of Joe Almeida's or Juan Pichardo's district vs. the General Assembly would be an appropriate way for the US Constitution to provide protection if the People's representatives cannot step up to the plate.  

Presuming RI always had 75 House seats (in 1990, districts were vastly reduced)

          RI pop.         Prison Pop.    #per District   percentage of a single House District
1970   950,000       +-500              12,667                   4%
1980   947,000        730                12,627                   6%
1990  1,003,000      2495               13,373                  19%
2000  1,048,000     3204                13,973                   23%
2010  +-1,050,000   4500               14,000                  29%