DENVER– Various local civil rights and social justice organizations are calling on Colorado Independent Redistricting Commissions to end all prison gerrymandering within Colorado.
A vote will be called on Thursday, Aug. 12, while commissions will be redrawing Colorado’s congressional and state legislative districts.
The Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, Second Chance Center, Colorado Black Women for Political Action, Aurora National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Denver NAACP, Servicios de la Raza, NAACP Colorado, Montana, Wyoming Statewide Conference, Padres & Jovenes Unidos, Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights and El Movimiento Sigue came together to write this letter for the Congressional and Colorado State Legislative Redistricting Commissions.
An excerpt from the letter reads as follows:
“There is no rational or legitimate reason to use the place of incarceration in the population data for purposes of redistricting. The prison is not their home; it is merely where they are temporarily housed.”
Over 95% of Colorado prisoners are released, and although redistricting only happens once every ten years, the average prisoner length of stay is less than four years for men and less than two years for women. Transfers within the system are very common, making redistricting inaccurate.
The groups encouraged the commissioners in their letter to utilize the practice designated by the U.S. Armed Forces which allows their service members based on their place of residency and not the location of their assignment.
“[The practice used by the military] is an accommodation that recognizes servicemembers are temporariy away from home. We submit people in prison are also temporarily away from home and therefore should also be reallocated to their home communities for the purposes of redistricting.”
In this document included to the commissioners courtesy of the CCJRC, statistics prove that many Colorado prison inmates are not from the communities in which they’re incarcerated.
