So Americans who commit crimes don't care about being arrested and are trying to get caught? Is that your argument? More likely, they're here to work and are thankful for any menial job they can get because its way better than what they had back home.
1) Incarceration rate does not equal crime rate. It's harder to find and arrest someone who does not have a long history or established identity in this country. 2) Illegal immigrants fear deportation so they are less likely to engage in activities that may end up with them being arrested. 3) Deportation rates affect the incarceration rate. Per the study: A) "if the foreign-born are swiftly deported for criminal activity, then their institutionalized numbers will be low relative to their actual criminal activity." B) "since the state has a high rate of recidivism, meaning that the prison population is disproportionately made up of returning offenders.20 If the U.S.-born recidivate, but many of the foreign-born do not (because of deportation), then relative institutionalization rates may understate the criminal activity levels of the foreign-born." 4) That stat about Mexico is inflated for effect by including " county jails, halfway houses, and the like" in the incarceration stats. Though it notes state "Prison is generally reserved for serious crimes." 5) U.S. born are more than twice as likely to be incarcerated for drug crimes: "The rate of incarceration for drug crimes was 54 per 100,000 for the foreign-born and 114 per 100,000 for the U.S.-born.8" -- End the "drug war" like many want and the stats change significantly. 6) In the footnotes, they observe "in these point-in-time data, a higher percentage of the foreign-born than the U.S.-born were incarcerated on a “crimes against persons” charge (57% vs. 48%)." and "The percentage of foreign-born entering for property crimes was lower than for the U.S.-born (18% vs. 29%), as was the percentage entering for assault offenses (18% vs. 22%). The percentage of foreign-born entering for manslaughter charges was slightly higher than for the U.S.-born (2.8% vs. 2.5%), and the percentage entering for sex offenses was not statistically significantly different for the two groups (4.7% vs. 4.2%)."
It's an interesting study in that it seems the complete opposite of what we've been told. I wonder how the study's authors reconcile Justice Dept statistics suggesting just the opposite, that immigrants make up a disproportionately higher % of federal prison populations. ZZZZ has made some great points. I'm not sure we know exactly what burden immigrants place on the criminal justice system. It seems like the kind of issue where statistics can be manipulated to support whatever agenda one has.
They seem to play up things that affect the US born population while playing down influences regarding the foreign born. For example, they speculate that "If, for example, the U.S.-born are better able than the foreign-born to aid in their own defense or have more resources to devote to their defense..." their probability of conviction will be less. This seems to ignore the fact that 27% of the California prison population is poor and black, a group that the footnotes mention another study found is adversely affected by immigration. So in regards to the Federal Incarceration rate, they take pains to point out, "it is critical to note that immigration violations are prosecuted under federal jurisdiction." However, this ignores the lesson we've learned from other Hornfans discussions about illegal immigration -- it's treated as a civil proceeding. They don't send you to federal prison for being an illegal immigrant. They then infer the stat is irrelevant because most prisoners are held in state prisons. And that fully 30% of the foreign born who are incarcerated are held in California's prison system.
After reading the entire thread something kept gnawing at me. Then I figured it out: There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
"we suspect" They suspect, discount and ignore a lot of things in order to draw the conclusion they wanted. The rate of incarceration for foreign-born peoples may be lower (for the reasons stated here), but this study reeks of subjectivity and bias -- they shaped their findings to exaggerate the result.
