I did some follow up research on the immigrant
kid issue I discussed in a previous blog.
The Office of Refugee
Resettlement recently reported that for fiscal year 2014 68, 541 kids
unlawfully entered the US. It is
expected that for fiscal year 2015 74,000 kids will enter. Kids from Mexico are taken right back across
the border. The highest percentages of
kids come from Honduras followed by Guatemala. Most kids ride a train through Mexico
called La
Bestia. Neither the Mexican
government nor the railroads do anything about it. When the kids are caught at the border, the average time
in a shelter is 45 days. All kids are
scheduled for a deportation hearing; there were no statistics on the average
time for a hearing or the percentage of kids that are allowed to stay. There is
neither legislation nor administrative action to address this situation.
The pattern of the US Justice Department in collecting fines
without admissions of guilt continues.
There are currently several pending settlements over foreclosure and
interest rate collusion pending, involving billions in fines. The DOJ practice on collecting fines without admissions of wrong doing is not a deterrent. I did some research on the problem and the
following statistics come from the Pew
Center. In 1980 the prison
population in the US was approximately 500,000.
Currently, the population is 2,300,000.
We currently have more inmates than the combined 35 European
nations. The average cost per inmate in
$40,000/year. We now have over
70,000,000 people with criminal records.
There are now 3 pieces of legislation in Congress that looks at this
problem, more importantly questions are being addressed that look at the
relationship between higher incarceration rates and crime reduction and the
relationship between wrongdoing and overregulation.
So getting back to the question about jail time for breaches of regulatory matters: I would lean
against incarceration except for the most aggravated of economic crimes and in
favor of individual civil and criminal liability and corporate and individual loss
of license.
On a more personal level, and in the vein of making a
difference, I am currently serving on the Greenwood Village
Parks and Trails commission. I had
thought it would not be very contentious and I might contribute something that
made a difference. Oh how wrong I
was. Quickly into my term I ran smack
into the dilemma of growth versus open space preservation: regulation versus
free market. Stay tuned for results in
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