US: Study Shows Sharp Rise in Latino Federal Convicts

[Harold Schiffman]

 Study Shows Sharp Rise in Latino Federal Convicts
By SOLOMON MOORE<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/solomon_moore/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
Published: February 18, 2009

Latino convicts now represent the largest ethnic population in the federal
prison system, accounting for 40 percent of those convicted of federal
crimes, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research
Center<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/pew_research_center/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,
a nonpartisan research organization.
  [image: More Hispanics Sentenced]Graphic
<javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/02/18/us/20090219_IMMIG_GRAPHIC.html',
'470_666',
'width=470,height=666,location=no,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')>
More
Hispanics Sentenced<javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/02/18/us/20090219_IMMIG_GRAPHIC.html',
'470_666',
'width=470,height=666,location=no,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')>

Latinos made up only 13 percent of the United States adult population in
2007, but they accounted for one third of federal prison inmates that year,
a result the study attributed to the sharp rise in illegal
immigration<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>and
tougher enforcement of immigration laws. Nearly half of Latino
offenders, or about 48 percent, were convicted of immigration crimes, while
drug offenses were the second-most-prevalent charge, according to the
report. As the annual number of federal offenders more than doubled from
1991 to 2007, the number of Latino offenders sentenced in a given year
nearly quadrupled, to 29,281 from 7,924.

Of Latino federal offenders, 72 percent are not United States citizens and
most were sentenced in courts from one of the four states that border
Mexico. Federal prisoners who are illegal immigrants are usually deported to
their home countries after serving their sentences. "The immigration system
has essentially become criminalized at a huge cost to the criminal justice
system, to courts, to judges, to prisons and prosecutors," said Lucas
Guttentag, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties
Union<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/american_civil_liberties_union/index.html?inline=nyt-org>.
"And the government has diverted the resources of the criminal justice
system from violent crimes, financial skullduggery and other areas that have
been the traditional area of the Justice Department."

Last month, The New York Times reported that federal immigration
prosecutions had increased over the last five years, doubling in the last
fiscal year to more than 70,000 cases. Meanwhile, other categories of
federal prosecutions, including gun trafficking, public corruption,
organized crime and white-collar crime, declined over the same period. The
federal justice system accounts for 200,000, or 8.6 percent, of the 2.3
million inmates in federal and state prisons and city and county jails.
Nineteen percent of state prisoners and 16 percent of jail inmates were
Latinos, the Pew study found. African-Americans, who make up about 12
percent of the national population, make up 39 percent of state prisoners
and jail inmates.

Deborah Williams, an assistant federal defender in Phoenix, said that the
large number of Latinos in the federal system, particularly those who are
not citizens and have limited English proficiency, had sharply changed
federal prison culture. "I have Anglo and Native American clients who tell
me about being the only non-Spanish speaker in their pod," Ms. Williams
said. "Ten years ago, it just wasn't that way. Everything is changing in
there, including the language, the television shows they watch, and a lot of
times the guards don't speak the language. How do you safely guard people
who may not understand your orders?"

A spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Prisons, Tracy Billingsley, declined
immediate comment on the Pew report. Mark Hugo Lopez, a co-author of the
study, which relied on United States Sentencing Commission statistics, said,
"It's hard to understand whether we're seeing a policy change or just a
growth in the total number of immigrants coming to this country." The number
of illegal immigrants in the country increased to 11.9 million last year,
from 3.9 million in 1992. Under federal programs like Operation Gatekeeper,
which hired thousands of immigration enforcement officials along the Mexican
border, and Operation Streamline, which instituted a "zero tolerance policy"
for illegal border crossings in the same region, immigration crimes have
skyrocketed.

The large number of immigration crimes and low-level drug offenses account
for the relatively light sentences that Latinos typically receive — about 46
months, compared with 62 months for white inmates and 91 months for
African-American prisoners, according to the study. The hearing for José
Sánchez on Wednesday in Los Angeles was typical. Having been convicted of
illegal re-entry, Mr. Sánchez, 37, who has prior convictions for assault and
drug possession, pleaded guilty in exchange for a sentence of 46 months. The
hearing took less than 10 minutes. Mr. Sánchez, who has a wife and three
children in the area, asked to be assigned to a prison nearby. He is likely
to be deported to Mexico after serving his sentence.

Rebecca Cathcart contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/us/19immig.html?_r=1&em




**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its
members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or
sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree
with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20090219/67cff0f9/attachment.htm>