State Rep. Ford Wants Prisoners Counted in Their Home District

By Prescott Carlson in News on Mar 29, 2011 7:40PM

As the tedious and sometimes quarrelsome process of redistricting Illinois begins, state Rep. LaShawn Ford (D-Chicago) is trying to make the case that the state's approximately 48,000 prison inmates should be counted in the area they came from instead of the current method, which is to count them as residents of the county where the prison is located.

According to STLtoday.com, Ford argued, "It's only fair to count someone where they are going to be returning and needing services to be rehabilitated," and has filed House Bill 94 to change the method in which inmates are counted in future censuses. He added that the current way is no more than "prison gerrymandering." Currently, a prisoner serving a sentence as low as two years is counted as a resident of the correctional center.

But downstate lawmakers are nowhere near willing to let go of those tens of thousands of numbers in their population count and all the extra federal and state money they bring.

State Sen. John O. Jones (R-Mount Vernon), whose district includes two of the state's correctional centers, thinks things are just fine they way they are because the local counties provide services to the prisons and was quoted as saying:

"The little town of Ina that sits next door to Big Muddy [River Correctional Center]. They are included in the population, so it benefits their population. They provide the water, the gas and the sewer services [to the prison], so I think they should be reimbursed financially for that population."

State Rep. Mike Bost (R-Murphysboro) added that local police and courthouses are also the ones responsible when inmates wind up in "legal trouble."