just deport 'em!

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Jul 27 17:14:28 PDT 1999


"The Role of Deportation in the Incarceration of Immigrants"

BY: KRISTIN F. BUTCHER

Boston College

Department of Economics

ANNE MORRISON PIEHL

Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of

Government

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Paper ID: NBER Working Paper No. 6974

Date: February 1999

Contact: KRISTIN F. BUTCHER

Email: Mailto:kristin.butcher at bc.edu

Postal: Boston College

Department of Economics

Carney Hall 145

140 Commonwealth Avenue

Chestnut Hill, MA 02167-3806 USA

Phone: (617)552-3696

Co-Auth: ANNE MORRISON PIEHL

Email: Mailto:annep at ksgrsch.harvard.edu

Postal: Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government

79 John F. Kennedy St.

Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

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ABSTRACT:

Using data on all new admissions to California state prisons in

1986, 1990, and 1996, we find that the foreign-born have a very

different offense mix from native-born inmates, with foreigners

much more likely to be serving time for drug offenses. We

document and discuss many of the substantial changes in the

enforcement environment over this period, including the war on

drugs, changes in public law expanding the classes eligible for

deportation, and increases in the level of resources

appropriated for enforcement activities targeting deportable

aliens. These developments have resulted in much greater

attention by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to the

incarceration of the foreign born. By 1996, the definition of

"deportable" was such that it covered essentially all

non-citizens in the California prison system. Throughout the

period, those foreign-born inmates designated by the California

Department of Corrections to be released to INS custody serve

substantially (6-12 percent) longer terms (conditional upon

sentence length) than natives or other "similar" foreigners.

These longer terms of incarceration impose substantial costs on

the state.

JEL Classification: K42, J18, H79



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