Colby Hamilton, Writer, WNYC News
Colby Hamilton is a general assignment reporter. He originally joined WNYC as a political blogger. He's a proud graduate of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
Social justice groups hit redistricting task force on prisoner non-compliance
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - 04:13 PM
A group of social justice and good government organizations sent a reprimanding letter today to the state's redistrict task force in response to reports that predominately upstate districts would continue to count prisoners in their population totals--a violation of the law, according to the letter.
After meeting earlier this month, the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) was reportedly looking to continue the practice of counting prisoners as part of the population of the district in which they're incarcerated, violating a law passed in 2010 that changed the law to have prisoners counted as part of the districts they lived in prior to incarceration.
"Failure to comply promptly with the law’s requirement that incarcerated persons be reallocated for purposes of redistricting would be a serious violation of legal obligations," the letter said. "It would also gravely infringe upon the voting rights of New York’s citizens for which you could be held accountable.We understand LATFOR has already received from [the Department of Correctional Services] the information needed to make the reallocation required by Part XX and redraw the district lines accordingly.
"We respectfully insist you to do so immediately."
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Comments [1]
Just because you are living in the prison for 25 years or life does not mean you :"LIVE" there.
Before there was the "Oracle at Delphi" there was Count Vampire J. Machiavelli
VJ Machiavelli
www.VJMachiavelli.blogspot.com
The Legislative Budget is Too Damn High
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