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Statistics can be confusing.
They can be a window to the truth. They can also allow prefabricators to prefabricate.
Take crime, ethnicity and race for example.
We are told that those allowed into our country from a foreign place are bad actors – prone to troublemaking, arrest and jail – murdering and raping our people. These people from afar are not like us. They are not our color, not our religion, not born here. They talk in some language we don’t understand. They are gang members who are overrunning our towns and cities. They belong to groups that cause our drug problems. And they do not worship the way we do at our churches. How can we sleep at night?
Some of us get that information from fear mongers in Washington, television commentators, and those who would use our fear to their political, financial or personal benefit.
So what are the facts? Who does what to whom? And who ends in jail for it?
Going to prison here in the United States is a punishment for committing a felony and some other offenses. America has the largest prison population in the world. Recently, there were 655 adult people in jail in the United States per 100,000 population.
This costs our government (your tax dollars) about $80 billion dollars per year.
With so many people in jail, you would think we would feel safer. Nope. We still worry about how many more criminals are out there.
Not long ago there were about 1 in 38 persons in the United States under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, and prison). This excludes juveniles.
The U.S. Education Department completed a recent study showing how state and local spending on incarceration has grown three times as much as spending on public education in the last 40 years.
So has immigration across our southern border caused the problem?
Here are some recent numbers courtesy again of the U.S. government.
Based on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) for state and federal prisoners at year end 2022, the estimated percentages of sentenced prisoners were:
32% Black
31% White
23% Hispanic
2% American Indian or Alaska Native
1% Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander
Data on the incarcerated population also includes local jails. A year later in 2023, the percentage of individuals held in local jails by race/ethnicity was approximately 47% White, 36% Black, and 14% Hispanic.
The disparities are often starker when looking at incarceration rates. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, using national data for all types of incarceration:
Black and White Americans are incarcerated at a rate of 1,272 per 100,000 residents.
Hispanic people are incarcerated at a rate of 343 per 100,000 residents.
Even then these numbers are skewed. That means that although they are correct, included in the Hispanic totals are those Hispanics being incarcerated for the felony of crossing the border improperly – NOT FOR COMMITTING A CRIME AGAINST OTHERS.
Hispanics also have a greater propensity for being jailed for the same crimes that White perpetrators are allowed off the hook.
The statistics are clear. Hispanics are not the problem. The problem is our not resolving those issues that cause excessive incarceration rates in the first place.
This is not to say that anyone should have a free ride. That we should permit our borders to become porous. That we should ignore law enforcement.
Rather it indicates that we should put our dollars to work where it brings us the best results. The highest return on our tax-payer investment in programs.
Does building a wall act to protect us from the largest sources of major crime – Whites and Blacks?
Does this huge expenditure solve the problem that is causing Hispanics to seek asylum in the United States? Their fear of gangs, drug wars, lack of education, no jobs, sickness and hunger, and other societal failures in their own countries – many with corrupt governments. .
If we recall our own American history, people from England, France, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, the Scandinavian countries, Russia, the Balkans, the Near East, India, Pakistan, China, the Pacific Rim… and all parts of the world came to America to run away from their home lands. Away from where things were not so good to a new world that we now call America.
I am Scotch, Irish, English and German. My wonderful spouse is German. I have helped take care of a young lady who is El Salvadoran and Guatemalan. I have a daughter-in-law who is Cuban and Mexican. I have a son-in-law who has roots in two separate African nations. So does another soon-to-be son-in-law.
The point is that this country is a mixed bag – not a bunch of White people invaded by outsiders here to do us harm.
We have rules for immigration. All we need to do is enforce them. Those who meet our legislated criteria should be allowed entry in concurrence with the law and without bureaucratic shuffle and stalling.
The best way to protect ourselves is to surround ourselves with friends. Not go out into the world, cause grief and make enemies.
So to the lady who wrote to me about “keeping someone from killing your child is a start” I would recommend she consider moving to an Hispanic community here in the United States where crime is minimal. According to the statistics, you can sleep safely there.
Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, former Shippensburg University Trustee, awarded numerous patents, as well as Founder and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. eLynxx provides cloud-software for automated sourcing and managing of mail marketing, swag, packaging, and all things print. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at Bill.Gindlesperger@eLynxx.com.
