Crime in England and the USA

The International Crime Victims Survey's conclusion is that England and Wales (Scotland has separate data-- with higher crime, I think) has higher crime rates than the US even for violent crime. Murder (not covered by the survey) is the only exception. From Table 1, section 9.1, the 2004 and 2005 numbers for England and the US are, per person per year:
Car theft: 1.8, 1.1
Burglary (home):3.5, 2.5
Robbery (face to face): 1.4, 0.6
Theft of personal property: 6.3, 4.8
Assaults and threats (similar ratio for just assaults): 5.8, 4.3

Illegal Immigrants Cause 6% of Crime , which Costs$24 Billion

David Wilson pointed out flaws in my earlier post on crime and illegal immigrants. My numbers were way off, but even when cut they support my ultimate conclusion: the cost of crime by illegal aliens wipes out the economic gains from them. And this is true even if it were to be the case, as Mr. Wilson suggests, illegal aliens have a lower propensity to commit crime---adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, etc. --- than citizens do. (That's because for the question of how much they harm the U.S. , one shouldn't adjust: what matters is how much crime they commit in total, not how much crime they would commit if they were old and female.)

Note that even corrected, my estimates are still just a weblog estimate, not up to the standards for first draft for an academic working paper, though that doesn't mean they aren't the best available (somebody *should* do a serious study of this). What would be really useful would be a survey of a random sample of those imprisoned in state and federal prisons and jails.

My numbers were indeed way off. The big problem was my use of the SCAAP numbers for the number of illegal aliens in jail during the year. I compared that to the number of people in jail measured on one particular day. Since jails are for terms of less than one year, there will be a lot more people in and out during the year than are in jail during any one day.

My latest estimate is that 6.1% of crime is by illegal aliens, and it imposes a cost of 24 billion dollars per year. The reasoning is below. (The percentage is exactly the same as David Wilson's but that is an odd coincidence; he includes jails and gets 6.1% as 131,000/ 2,135,335).

Here are some numbers on inmates of "prisons" (a term of art which means state and federal prisons, places where criminals serve sentences of one year or more, as opposed to jails, which are run by cities and counties for lesser offenders). K means "thousand".

From the Justice Dept. source on prison data: Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/p06.htm, or http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pjim06.pdf Appendix Table 6: In prisons: 33K federal, 57K state noncitizens on June 30, 2006. Total: 90K. Table 12: Prisoners in custody: 181K federal, 1290K state. Total: 1471K. Fraction noncitizen: 90/1471= 6.1%.

If there are 10.5 million illegal aliens, then their imprisonment rate is 90/10500 = 0.85%. There are 308 thousand Hispanics in prison p06t07.csv out of a population of 44.3 million (Stat Abs. Table 6), about 0.69%. Thus, illegal aliens aren't much different from hispanics in percentage imprisoned. That is surprising, since I would think the illegals would have fewer women and children to bring down the criminality rate. The overall US imprisonment rate is 1471/297000=.50%. The white (nonblack, nonHispanic) rate is .27% (= (478+49)/198000 ) and the black (nonhispanic) rate is 1.56% (=(534+28)/36000).

The prison data has some problems. It is not just for the 10 million or so illegal aliens, but for all noncitizens, which includes the 12 million or so legal aliens (people with green cards, tourists, etc.) (10.5 million illegal aliens from the Statistical Abstract: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s0046.pdf The total population was 296,639,000, That's about 3.4% illegals.) (Legal aliens in 2005: 20.7-10.5 million. Table 44 SA http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s0044.pdf) Also, (1) some states don't report, (2) some states report jails as well as prisons, and (3) some states report all foreign-born, not just illegal aliens.

Also, from GAO report number GAO-05-337R, ‘Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails’ which was released on May 9, 2005, criminal aliens incarcerated in federal prisons were 49K at year-end 2004, a lot more than the 33K above; and in fiscal year 2002-SCAAP reimbursed states for 77K criminal aliens. The 77K is compatible with the 57K above, since it's 4 years apart and not just year-end (some people even with sentences of over a year will have left by year-end).

Anyway, if illegal aliens are 6.1% of crime (making the further assumption that the percentage in prisons is equal to the percentage of crime generally,including less serious crime), then if crime costs $400 billion per year, crime by illegal aliens costs 24 billion dollars per year. That is about equal to the June 20, 2007 CEA report Immigration’s Economic Impact, which says immigration has a net benefit of $30 billion per year, which includes both legal and illegal immigrants.

May 3: A survey of illegal immigrants who applied for amnesty around 1989 found that of working-age adults, just 57% were male and 12% worked in agriculture. 37% had 9 or more years of schooling, which is below the American average, but above the Mexican average (p. 884 of Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States Gordon H. Hanson, Journal of Economic Literature, Page 1. The Journal of Economic Literature Vol. 44, No. 4, December 2006)

A Summertown Brothel. Who would have thought it just a half-mile from our house? An Oxford Times article says:

A BROTHEL in a quiet Oxford street was run so professionally it was "like a restaurant", a court heard today.

Mother-of-two Elaine Konopka, 39, admitted helping run the brothel in Middle Way, Summertown....

"Konopka admitted working at the address on approximately ten occasions over an 18-month period. She said she was responsible for answering phones, making appointments and greeting customers." ...

"She was not a part-time receptionist, she was a fill-in receptionist. The brothel was open from 10am to 10pm seven days a week. ...

District judge Brian Loosley looked at the brothel's menu, which had services ranging from £50-£140, while considering the sentence.

Ordering her to carry out 60 hours' unpaid community work and pay £100 costs, he said: "It is quite clear this was run almost like a restaurant, with menus and various services being offered....

Neighbours tonight said they were pleased the brothel had been closed.

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said she thought Konopka's sentence was too lenient.

She said: "I think it is disgusting she only got 60 hours' community service.

"It is so nice not having so many strange men going in there. It was really unpleasant. It certainly attracted all sorts of men - not very nice people at all.

"Some had children's car seats in the back. You just felt upset for the wives."

Wicked Judges. Oxford has a number of bad judges. Here is a Julian Hall story:

... a 58-year-old former teacher at the Cothill School in Oxfordshire was charged recently with abusing a number of boys in the 1970s. But the judge, Julian Hall, declared earlier this year that "this is the stalest case I have been asked to try" and threw it out.

"I think the best thing that should happen to people who behave in this way," Hall told Oxford Crown Court, speaking of the former teacher, Jeremy Malim, "is that they should get a very brisk elbow in the ribs at the time or be rejected."

And here's more about Julian Hall:

Judge Hall, criticised last year for saying a 10-year-old rape victim dressed provocatively, gave a Berinsfield teenager three years' probation for molesting a five-year-old girl.

The 17-year-old - who Judge Hall banned the Oxford Mail from naming - had also abused a seven-year-old boy....

Last year, Judge Hall sent Blackbird Leys window cleaner Keith Fenn to prison for just two years after he raped a 10-year-old.

He also told a 71-year-old man who sexually abused a six-year-old to compensate her with money for a new bike....

Judge Hall told lawyers in court: "At the moment, the defendant is probably not dangerous."

The girl's mother, who was sitting in the public gallery, shouted out: "Tell that to my daughter!"

Judge Hall told the teenager: "What you did was dreadful and it is the sort of behaviour which affects people rather badly and for a long time.

"You are going to have to attend courses to help you sort out your attitude to sex and children younger than you."

He granted the teenager anonymity and said that he was too young to be identified publicly for his crimes.

And here's a story about Charles Harris:

A JUDGE who likened growing cannabis to tomato plants criticised Oxford City Council as he dismissed an Antisocial Behaviour Order.

The city council had wanted Phillip Pledge thrown out of his home and banned from Blackbird Leys for two years after police seized £3,400- worth of cannabis from a flat in Evenlode Tower where he was temporarily living.

But Judge Charles Harris - who caused controversy last week during the Asbo hearing when he said it was no more offensive to neighbours to grow cannabis than tomato plants - threw out the case.

Judge Harris said at Oxford Crown Court: "Oxford City Council applied for the order because the defendant caused harassment, alarm or distress.

"I have considerable reservations. There is no evidence at all to show anyone had been caused alarm, had been harassed or could be distressed. "It is not appropriate to seek orders with potentially very serious consequences without producing evidence to justify them.

"It is alleged the defendant was growing and selling cannabis in his flat. This is a criminal offence and he could have been tried in the criminal courts.

"For some reason the Crown Prosecution Service has not charged Mr Pledge, although the police have reason to justify charging him.

"It is not for the local housing authority in civil proceedings, via an Asbo, to provide a substitute for criminal proceedings."

The court heard Mr Pledge was jailed in 1998 for possession of cannabis and fined in 2000 for cultivating it.

Mr Pledge, of Strawberry Path in Blackbird Leys, had been living in the flat temporarily due to an arson attack on his home.

The 38-year-old was in rent arrears of £1,479.64, but told Judge Harris he had arranged to pay that back. ...

Judge Harris did not give leave for the council to appeal against his decision against an Asbo or to evict Mr Pledge.

Illegal Immigrants and Crime. Steve Sailer has recent posts on that topic here and here, with sources. He doesn't have much that's new to me, but I'll make a note of it. I have an earlier weblog post that can be searched for that has more on the topic, which needs to be investigated.

Immigrants and Crime: Switzerland.The Independent had an article a while back on discontent with immigration in Switzerland. Here are a couple of interesting facts from it:

* More than 20 per cent of the Swiss population, and 25 per cent of its workforce, is non-naturalised.

* At the end of 2006, 5,888 people were interned in Swiss prisons. 31 per cent were Swiss citizens – 69 per cent were foreigners or asylum-seekers.

I wish it said how many of those "interned" were there for immigration crimes. None of them, or most of them?