ArcMap: Mississippi Incarceration Rate & State Senate

This first map displaysMississippi State Senate Districts, colored by the percentage of incarcerated people living in each district, with darker colors indicating higher percentages. (Or here for full screen storymap.)

In 2010, 8.55% of non-incarcerated Mississippi residents lived in State Senate districts where the population comprised of more than 5% incarcerated persons, and 2.95% of residents lived in districted that had more than 7% incarcerated persons.

Districts that have a high percentage of incarcerated persons inversely have a lower percentage of voting residents in the county. This means that their voters have disproportionally greater weight by their representatives than residents districts that do not contain prison populations.

More information about this problem can be found at the Prison Policy Initiative.