Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/384

 370 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

those born of foreign-born parents to the same classes in the community at large is only 84 per cent, of the ratio of native- born prisoners to the same class in the community at large.

It is true that these propositions are contrary to the popular impressions, and contrary to the apparent showing of the census on a superficial view ; but they can be established to the satisfac- tion of any candid student.

Mr. Hewes has followed the lead of most writers on this subject, and has committed the error of comparing the criminal population, foreign and native, with the whole of the general population, foreign and native. The young children of the com- munity furnish practically no prisoners, and nearly all of these children are native born, whether the parents are native born or not. The consequence is that Mr. Hewes has not only given the native population credit for its own children, who are not criminals, but has taken the native-born children of foreign parents, adding them to the native-born population and count- ing them against their own parents. The result can easily be illustrated : suppose that we were to take one hundred native- born adults, and one hundred foreign-born adults and should find that out of each hundred ten were in prison. This would give us a ratio of 10 per cent, in each case. Suppose now that we find that the one hundred foreign-born adults have two hundred minor children, and the one hundred native-born adults have two hundred minor children, but that one hundred and fifty of the children of the foreign-born parents were born in this country. We now have a population of six hundred people of whom twenty are in prison, giving a ratio of 3-J per cent. Of these six hundred, one hundred and fifty are foreign born, of whom ten are criminals, showing a ratio of 6.7 per cent., and four hun- dred and fifty are native born, of whom ten are criminals, giving a ratio of 2.2 per cent. By this method the foreign-born people would appear to have three times the ratio of the native-born people, when as a matter of fact they ought to have just the same.

Of the prisoners of the United States 98.5 per cent, are above