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The Immigration Debate: Studies on the Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration
TABLE 9-2 Logit Models for Being Detained, Convicted, and Imprisoned in El Paso and San Diego
drugs in the month before their current offense, and more than 30 percent of all inmates said that they had been under the influence of drugs at the time of their current offense. So although there may be a concentration in drug offenses among imprisoned Hispanic offenders, especially from Colombia and the Dominican Republic, levels of drug use among Hispanic offenders in general seem to be about the same or lower than in the broader population of inmates. Scalia (1996:7) also reports that noncitizen offenders tend more often than citizens to be involved in "minor" and "low-level" drug offenses. This adds to the uncertainty as to whether and to what extent the imprisonment of Hispanic defendants from particular countries for drug offenses may be a product of their concentration in this type of crime as contrasted with the courts selecting this type of crime among immigrants from Colombia and the Dominican Republic.