Today, LDF sent a second letter urging the Rhode Island General Assembly’s Special Commission on Reapportionment to end prison-based gerrymandering. The letter asks the Commission to reallocate all incarcerated people to their home communities for the purposes of redistricting, including people serving long sentences. Recently, some commission members have suggested excluding people who are serving sentences of ten years or longer from those reallocated to their home communities. The letter urges the Commission to reallocate all incarcerated people who can be reallocated, regardless of sentence length or parole eligibility. The letter provides five reasons why reallocating all incarcerated people, including those serving long sentences, is the most equitable and appropriate remedy to prison-based gerrymandering’s discriminatory and anti-democratic harms.
Read the full letter here.
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Follow LDF on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.