dor are incarcerated at about the same rate as citizens. Recall that the circumstances of immigration from Cuba and the Dominican Republic have been shaped quite uniquely by political forces that have led many individuals with backgrounds in crime to migrate to the United States: for example, when Castro allowed over 100,000 people, including many prison inmates, to leave Cuba in 1980. A result is that there is considerable variability in Hispanic rates of imprisonment, and it is therefore a mistake to assume that these rates are uniformly high or that there is an undifferentiated relationship between immigration and crime.

Rates of immigrant imprisonment are complicated further by the fact, noted at the outset of this chapter, that immigrants are younger and more often male than are citizens. Because young men are at much greater risk than others for involvement in crime and imprisonment, the base used in calculating an imprisonment rate for immigrants is probably most usefully adjusted for sex and age. In the last column of Table 9-1 we have calculated imprisonment ratios using denominators for the compared rates that estimate the male populations of immigrants between 15 and 34 years of age from the various countries. The resulting ratios reveal a greater similarity between immigrants and citizens than was previously apparent.

The adjusted male rate for Mexican immigrants between ages 15 and 34 (47.61) is particularly notable because it is quite similar to the U.S. citizen rate (45.51). By this measure, the image of Mexican immigrants as more criminal than citizens is somewhat misleading. The imprisonment rates for some of the remaining countries are still substantially higher than the citizen rate. The Jamaican (69.52), Guatemalan (73.33), and Colombian (78.24) rates cluster at an intermediate level, whereas the Dominican (126.98) and Cuban (131.78) rates cluster at a higher level. However, even the latter rates are now less than three times, whereas they were previously more than four times, the citizen rate. It is important to keep in mind that, although the Cuban and Dominican rates are relatively high, in absolute terms these are rather small immigrant population groups, and therefore their contributions to prison populations are limited. Mexicans (14,711) form by a multiple of more than four (compared with 3,130 Cubans) the largest group of state prison inmates, even though their age-adjusted male state imprisonment rate is similar to that for citizens. This brings us back to a point made above, that if crime reduction is the sole and absolute priority, there is reason for concern.

However, there is also the further consideration that imprisonment rates inevitably are a result of several factors: involvement and apprehension for criminal behavior and decisions made about the prosecution and punishment of this behavior. As we further document below, there is reason to believe that Mexican and other immigrants may experience some unique risks of imprisonment for their crimes. These risks may result from differences in initial and predisposition custody decisions for illegal aliens. Detention prior to trial and sentencing is commonly found to increase the likelihood of conviction and ultimate incarcera-