May 22, 2006

the harping index: illegal immigration edition

I'm going to continue harping on this because it's important.

At latest estimate there are nearly 2.2 million people in jail or prison in the United States. (1.4 million in jail; .75 million in prison.)

At latest estimate 55,322 of these are illegal immigrants.

If we accommodate a bit and assume the number of illegal immigrants incarcerated has increased since then to 60,000 total, where does this leave us, statistically speaking?

60,000 divided by 2.15 million. Illegal immigrants represent 2.8% of the jail and prison population.

10 million divided by 300 million. Illegal immigrants represent 3.3% of the overall population.

58% of all arrests of illegal aliens occurred in California. Yet the Golden State doesn't even crack the top five for rate of incarceration.

We need more sanity in the immigration debate. Maybe these numbers will help.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Yes because logic and facts always cures insanity.