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My name is Omar Askia Ali AKA Edward Sistrunk. I'm housed in Coal Township. My subject matter is prison-based gerrymandering. An article in the new Pittsburgh Courier, December the 2nd, quotes the Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections John Wessel stating that he stopped the longstanding policy of shipping inmates to facilities far from their homes when studied data revealed that it hindered family visits and increased recidivism. According to the Pennsylvania state constitution, counting prisoners living in areas that aren't their residence is illegal. According to a 2009 study by the Prison Policy Initiative, blacks are 9.8 times as likely to be in prison as white people, but a disproportionate number of state and federal prisons are located in counties that have a larger proportion of whites than the state has a whole. In 2010, Maryland became the first state to pass a law requiring that prisoners be counted in their own districts, adding an estimated 12,000 Baltimoreans to the city's official population. P