This month, the Census Bureau gave Illinois and other states the ability to decide the matter, and a Chicago-area lawmaker responded with a bill proposing to make the change to hometowns. Proponents argue it is a matter not only of money but democratic equality, but downstate lawmakers retort that the money is needed for infrastructure around the prisons.
"It isn't fair for certain communities to reap a benefit that they don't deserve just because these people are in jail on one given day," said state Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat who sponsored the legislation.
The majority of Illinois' 45,000 inmates are actually from Cook County, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections, but they have swelled the population of Dixon, Vandalia and other rural prison towns.
About 30 percent of the residents of Brown County along the Missouri border, for example, are inmates at the Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mount Sterling.
The fight over population foreshadows next year's larger clash over redrawing boundaries for congressional and legislative districts, based on population shifts uncovered by the census. Those once-a-decade clashes are typically filled with partisan maneuvering.
The debate over prisoners also has a racial component. The Illinois Department of Corrections reports that about 60 percent of inmates are African-American, while most prisons are in rural, predominantly white areas.
Dale Ho, assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said African-American communities are especially sensitive because their political strength is diluted if their populations are dispersed. The Rev. Al Sharpton helped kick off a similar push to change the inmate-counting formula in New York.
"It is an issue of racial justice," Ho said.
Because of the traditional way of inmate counting, Cook County suffered a net loss of about 26,000 people in the 2000 Census, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
To facilitate a change, census officials also agreed to accelerate its breakout of prison populations to May 2011 so states would have the data in time for redistricting. In the past, the inmate count would come too late to be considered.
Ford said the change would be only fair for his district because some prisoners serving short sentences will return before the end of the decade. The Austin community on Chicago's West Side, part of Ford's district, was the largest destination for ex-offenders in 2001, according to the Urban Institute.
Ford worries that social-service agencies that help rehabilitate those ex-prisoners will not be able to raise necessary funds if there is not an accurate count that reflects their ties to the neighborhood.
To ease concerns that the new approach would give an unfair advantage to the prisoners' hometowns, Ford said he would introduce an amendment to allow prison towns to count inmates serving sentences longer than 10 years.
Ho said the NAACP would support a compromise in which inmates would be counted but not factored into the redistricting equation.
State Rep. Ron Stephens, a Republican from Highland whose district near St. Louis has the sixth-highest proportion of state prisoners, said the bill is merely a grab for money and clout. Stephens said downstate Democrats are already joining Republicans in organizing opposition to the bill.
"Rep. Ford would get the money but the folks I represent would be taking care of the prisoners," Stephens said. "It's a horrible public policy change. The system is fair now."
Congrats, Rep Ford for moving this legislation forward.
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