Newsweek has been running a series on American Prisons that I have found surprisingly well-done considering the mainstream newsiness of that publication.  This week’s article is titled “Do Rural Prisons Benefit Locals?”  It focuses particularly on the case of rural New York state.  A key paragraph in the article suggests:

The phenomenon of moving tens of thousands of prisoners from cities to rural areas is replicated in other big states across the country, from Texas (which has America’s largest state prison population) to California. But that is not the only way that prisoners transfer resources from cities to small towns. When state legislative districts are redrawn every decade after the U.S. census, inmates are counted as residents of where they reside in prison even though they are mostly felons who cannot vote there. So the votes of residents in areas whose population is swelled by nonvoting prisoners gain outsize influence.

An organization called Prisoners of the Censusaddresses the unfairness of counting prisoners as residents in rural counties  where they are incarcerated while the poor urban communities from which they originate are actually defunded through the Census counting process.  http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/

There are several other articles in the Newsweek series so far covering the debate between cutting prisons or education, how private prisons are financially struggling during this recession, and why we should treat drug addicts in prison.  The series is worth reading particularly for those who are unfamiliar with this issue of prison expansion and mass incarceration.  The articles provide a good introduction to some of the issues that individuals and communities are dealing with at this time.