Illegals in U.S. Prisons Fact or Fiction?

Question

When he first teased the prisons segment on the Nov. 4, 2003, broadcast, Mr. Dobbs said, “One-third of the inmates now serving time in federal prisons come from some other country — one-third.” But later he was less precise: “We’re going to take a further look at the impact of illegal aliens. And it is an expensive proposition, particularly in our nation’s prisons. Illegal aliens, those citizens — noncitizens taking up a third of the cells in our federal penitentiaries.”

In his online sidebar, Mr. Leonhardt cited a Bureau of Justice Statistics report showing that just 24% of federal inmates were noncitizens in 2001 — not 29.3%, as Mr. Dobbs said last night, nor one-third, as he said in 2003. Mr. Dobbs was citing numbers from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which don’t exactly match up.
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/counting-noncitizens-in-us-prisons-117/

Answer 1

I looked up some numbers and found that no two sources were the same, so I thought that it’d be interesting to take the lowest figures and annual percentages of increase to estimate what these inmates costs the US citizens each year.

Assume a prison population of 2 million in 2001, each year the population grows 3.8% but let’s round that down to 3%, keep it simple.

By 2007 we should have a number like 2.3 million in federal prison. If the percentage of non Americans stays constant at…let’s say 25%, in 2007 over 573,000 non citizens will be in federal prisons.

Assume that it takes $40,000 to hold each non citizen prisoner per year: $22,925,800,000 charged to US taxpayers this year alone.

He may have gotten the numbers mixed up, but I think the point Dobbs was attempting to make was the cost of the crimes committed by non citizens outweighs any contributions.

Answer 2

"Non-citizen" simply means a person that is not an American citizen. It does not automatically mean illegals from Mexico. The American prison system has a large number of Hispanics, to be sure. Some are Mexicans, some are Hondurans, Some are Cuban. We also have a number of Haitians, Nigerians, Canadians, a few Brits and I believe there are still some Australian bank robbers in Colorado.

Answer 3

They can site any number. The fact is 25% of the total inmates are immigrates you can dice and slice it anyway one wants. Also each states number totally might be higher or lower.
They average everything out. Some say it is higher some say lower what ever it is it is much to high. It is a good indication we are letting the wrong people, anyway you look at it!

Answer 4

It is 6% according to the department of justice. Lou Dobbs is a liar.

Answer 5

Statistics can be tricky, yes.

It's often easier to deport an illegal alien than to try him, though, so whatever the percentage of illegals filling our jails (and anything higher than 0% is really too much), the percentage committing crimes is probably higher.

Answer 6

A QUARTER of the prisoners when they only make up a fraction of actual US population is WAY TOO MANY...it would be something like 80% of the illegals here in the USA have done violent crimes to make their way into prison. WAY TOO MANY!

Answer 7

they are always changing and mr. dobbs was not too far off(like saying half), so i would say that he was correct. Besides, that number is way too high stilll.

Answer 8

and what part of 1/4 of the prisioners being non-citizens is good?

Answer 9

well prison populations are changing all the time.

The issue is whether its 24% or 29 or whatever that is way way way too many.

Answer 10

FACT! Send them home and keep them there.