Prison Policy Initiative Alumns

In 2006, Arla Berman worked on projects that were later published as Phantom constituents in the Empire State and the Democracy Toolkit.

As a 2006 law clerk, Brett Blank led our research that will soon be published as Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Illinois. He also published Prisons Warp Vote on TomPaine.com which explained how the prison industry exploits a loophole in Reynolds v. Sims to exert direct influence over the political process. He will graduate from the Western New England College School of Law in May 2009.

As part of our 2007 Alternative Spring Break program, JooHye DellaRocco calculated how the prison miscount harms democracy in rural Tennessee, co-authoring Phantom Constituents in Tennessee's Boards of County Commissioners. She graduated in 2007 with a Master of Arts degree in Criminal Justice from the State University of New York at Albany.

William Goldberg was a Prison Policy Initiative intern in 2006 and a research associate in 2007. Among other projects, he wrote Imprisoned in Low Wages: Limited access to education for people in prison leads to economic exclusion in the July/August 2007 issue of Dollars & Sense and co-authored our reports The Geography of Punishment and Phantom Constituents in the Empire State.

As an undergraduate, Ellie Happel researched how the New York City council's use of flawed Census Bureau counts of the Rikers Island population to draw council districts distorts electoral democracy. This research won her the 2005 Borgman Prize for the best senior thesis in the social sciences at New York University, and her findings were included in our report Phantom Constituents in the Empire State: How Outdated Census Bureau Methodology Burdens New York Counties.

Stephen Healy co-founded the Prison Policy Initiative in 2001. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Geography in the Physical and Earth Sciences department at Worcester State College.

As a 2006 law clerk, John Hejduk wrote Census Bureau's Prisoner Count Hurts Ohio Democracy and co-wrote Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Wisconsin. He will graduate from the Western New England College School of Law in May 2009.

Rose Heyer developed that GIS methodology for the Prisoners of the Census project, enabling us to quickly calculate how Census Bureau's prison miscount distorts representative democracy. She produced our most popular map U.S. Prison Proliferation, 1900-2000 and she co-authored Too big to ignore: How counting people in prisons distorted Census 2000, Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Texas, Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Ohio, and Thirty-Two Years After Attica: Many More Blacks in Prison but not as Guards. Rose is now GIS and CAD consultant in California.

In 2006, Ben Iddings was the first editor of our legal resources for prisoners database. Ben did the hard work of the original compilation, allowing us to easily update the list each year. He graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law and is now a public defender in Fort Collins, CO.

Sarah Kowalski co-founded the Prison Policy Initiative in 2001. She graduated from Smith College in 2003. Until recently, she has been living in China teaching English. In 2008, she moved back to the U.S. to seek a position as a high school teacher of Chinese.

As part of our 2006 Alternative Spring Break program, Yugo Nakai researched how how the prison miscount distorts democracy in Illinois counties. This research will be published soon in a report entitled Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Illinois. His work helped to fine tune our research methodology eventually published in Democracy Toolkit. He graduated from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 2007.

As part of our 2007 Alternative Spring Break program, Meghan Rudy helped to complete research on how counties in New York State grapple with the redistricting implications of the Census Bureau's decision to count people in prison as residents of the census block that contains the prison. She co-authored our report, Empire State: How outdated Census Bureau methodology burdens New York counties, the findings of which were endorsed by the New York Times editorial board. She will graduate from the Hofstra University School of Law in May 2009.

As a summer intern in 2006, Justine Sheffler found the data that became our Phantom Constituents in Tennessee's Boards of County Commissioners report. She is a student at Smith College.

As a summer intern in 2006, Allison Tompkins researched how how the Census Bureau's prison miscount distorts democracy in rural counties. Her work helped us fine tune the our research methodology eventually published as the Democracy Toolkit. Allison also spent a week helping us to map bus stops in Georgia for the Southern Center for Human Rights' lawsuit Whitaker v. Perdue which challenged Georgia's ban on people on the sex offender registry from living within 1,000 feet of schools, churches and a long list of other places including school bus stops. The state's hundreds of thousands of school bus stops are, almost by definition, any place there is habitable housing. The legislature unwittingly declared all urban areas, all surburban areas and most rural areas off limits. This law was so extreme that it merited opposition from many of the state's sheriffs. This litigation is still ongoing. Allison graduated from Smith College in 2008.

In 2003, Matt Widmer researched how all 50 states define in their constitutions and statutes where people in prison reside. His research formed an integral part of all future publications and advocacy on the Prisoners of the Census project. He is now an attorney in Alaska.