Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice Az Immigrant Scapegoating 2010
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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE AUGUST 2010 www.cjcj.org Public Policy Study Scapegoating Immigrants: Arizona’s Real Crisis Is Rooted in State Residents’ Soaring Drug Abuse by Mike Males, PhD Senior Research Fellow, Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice Professor of Sociology, University of California Santa Cruz Daniel Macallair, MPA Executive Director, Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice Funding was provided by a grant from the Fund for Nonviolence and Drug Policy Alliance. Conclusions and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the report’s sponsors I. Introduction and Background From 1990 to 2010, Arizona gained more than 1.3 million new Hispanic residents, approximately 1 million of whom located in the Phoenix metropolitan area.1 With 2 million legal and an estimated 300,000 undocumented Hispanic residents in the state today, approximately 31 percent of Arizona’s population and perhaps as much as 35 percent of the population within its borders is of Hispanic origin.2 This report examines crime and drug abuse trends in Arizona over the last two decades of massive legal and nonlegal Hispanic in-migration. Arizona’s recent anti-immigrant law3 is based on the theory that crime rates, especially related to drug distribution, and other social ills are driven by increases in legal and nonlegal immigration (see sidebar). Arizona’s governor even stated that, “the majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels, and they are bringing drugs in.”4 Based on a detailed analysis of law enforcement reports on crime rates in Arizona and the growth of the state’s Hispanic population over the past 20 years, this report finds that widespread assertions by many opinion leaders attributing rising crime to increased immigration are not confirmed by the best information available. To the contrary, this analysis found that crime rates in Arizona have fallen precipitously over the past 20 years as immigration has increased. Not only has crime plummeted, the number of undocumented immigrants in Arizona dropped by an estimated 40 percent, or by 200,000, from 2007 to 2010 due to the state’s economic and employment difficulties.5 Conservative, anti-immigrant interests have depicted Arizona as besieged by burgeoning immigrant-driven drugs, violence, and costly policing. Fox News Channel’s Bill O'Reilly (among others) repeatedly has blamed Arizona’s “500,000 illegal aliens” for (in O’Reilly’s words) bringing a crime wave in Arizona, particularly Phoenix, that is “overwhelming… dangerous … through the roof,” creating social chaos” so “desperate” and “dangerous” that the state had to impose its draconian 2010 crackdown requiring police to demand papers proving citizenship from anyone suspected of illegal status. “Arizona had to do something,” O’Reilly declared. “In the capital city, Phoenix, crime’s out of control. For example, last year, New York City, with six times as many residents as Phoenix, had just 16,000 more reported [violent] crimes.”* O’Reilly’s apples-oranges comparison is seriously misleading, as even cursory fact-checking would have revealed. The latest FBI (2010) crime report** shows that in 2009, New York had 5.3 times Phoenix’s population and 5.3 times its reported violent crimes—that is, identical violent crime rates—and both cities were experiencing plunging crime of all types. *See The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News, May 3, 4, 6, 13, and 14, 2010. **FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), Uniform Crime Reports (Crime in the United States), Offenses reported to law enforcement, January to December 2009. Posted at: www.fbi.gov/ucr/prelimsem2009/tabl e_4.html. Why, then, has panic over illegal immigration suddenly emerged as a political and news media force? This report suggests that new fears toward immigration have become conflated with deeper anxieties over Arizona’s unadmitted crisis of soaring drug abuse among its resident population. The state’s Vital Statistician recently acknowledged that officials had severely underreported drug-related deaths,6 which has obscured the magnitude of the crisis. Newly revised figures show deaths from illicit drug abuse have soared, primarily among White populations, to become Arizona’s second leading cause of non-natural mortality (lagging only suicide, which has a large drug abuse component). Drug-related hospital emergency cases also exploded to nearly 12,000 per year in the Phoenix area, with cases involving Whites rising rapidly while Hispanic cases 2 dropped. Does Arizona represent the latest chapter in historically misdirected panics toward feared immigrant and minority groups to avoid confronting a serious, homegrown drug crisis? Background Yale University historian David F. Musto documented in Scientific American the “powerful theme in the American perception of drugs” linked to “a feared or rejected group in American society.”7 In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a massive addiction crisis fueled by opiate- and alcohol-laced patent medicines afflicting more than 1 million mostly middle-aged, White Americans was obscured by politician, press, and violent mob attacks against Chinese immigrant “opium fiends” falsely blamed for widespread kidnappings and other crimes against Whites. Rising alcohol abuse centered in mainstream society in the early 1900s was accompanied by panics against Catholic immigrants and black male “cocaine fiends,” the latter depicted by police and the press as raping White women en masse while enjoying invulnerability to police bullets.8 Public fear in the 1930s, during what was really a temporary crisis of alcohol abuse following the repeal of Prohibition, was stoked by Commissioner of Narcotics Harry J. Anslinger and sensational news stories blaming “Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers” for supposed epidemics of “marihuana”-fueled violence, crime, insanity, and seductions of White women.9 Politicians, media reports, and popular films repeatedly portrayed menacing immigrant and ethnic drug dealers perpetrating heroin crises in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, when the real epidemic was prescription barbiturate abuse afflicting more affluent Americans. This regrettable historical pattern strongly suggests skepticism toward this latest campaign to blame immigrants for crime and drugs. This report will examine Arizona’s crime and drug trends to determine the extent to which they relate to the Hispanic immigrants on whom these problems publicly are blamed, or to an unadmitted epidemic of drug abuse among its resident population. II. Arizona crime: DOWN After a massive, 195% increase in the state’s Hispanic population over the last two decades (Table 1),10 the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s latest Crime in Arizona report shows corresponding declines in crime rates through 2009 (Table 2).11 In particular, since 1995, raw numbers of nearly every criminal offense declined by 26%. Table 1. Arizona population, 1990-2009 Year Total* Hispanic* Non-Hispanic* Percent Hispanic 1990 3,679,056 695,435 2,983,621 18.9% 1995 4,433,841 965,163 3,468,678 21.8% 2000 5,166,810 1,312,983 3,853,827 25.4% 2005 5,961,239 1,688,754 4,272,485 28.3% 2010 proj. 6,637,000 2,050,000 4,587,000 31.0% Change +80% +195% +54% +64% (Source: See Endnote 2) *Does not include illegal aliens. Note: In all tables, figures, and text discussion, “White” is non-Hispanic of European origin; “Other non-Hispanic” is Native, African, Asian, and other non-Hispanic race/ethnicity. Arrests may be of legal or illegal individuals, but crime rates are calculated from legal population numbers. In 2009, major drops in crime occurred in all major Arizona population areas, including those surrounding Phoenix. Despite a growth of over 2 million in the state’s population, the state experienced 4,000 fewer violent offenses and 90,000 fewer serious felonies in 2009 than in 1995. 3 In terms of population adjusted rates, murder in Arizona is down 52%, violent crime is down 44%, and property felonies are down 53% since the early 1990s. Arizona’s violent crime rate is at its lowest level since 1971, and all serious, Part I (Index) crime is at its lowest ebb since 1965.12 Table 2. Arizona crime index offense rates and raw numbers, 1990-2009 Crime rates per 100,000 population Raw crime numbers Year All Index Homicide Violent Murders Violent crimes Property crimes 1990 7,859.1 7.7 649.9 284 23,911 265,229 1991 7,330.2 7.7 663.9 291 25,152 252,559 1992 6,878.3 8.0 656.5 312 25,706 243,629 1993 7,195.1 8.3 692.2 339 28,142 264,371 1994 7,607.0 10.0 675.0 426 28,653 294,273 1995 8,213.6 10.4 713.5 439 30,095 316,355 1996 7,067.0 8.5 631.5 377 27,963 284,964 1997 7,195.0 8.2 623.7 375 28,411 299,323 1998 6,575.0 8.1 577.9 376 26,984 280,001 1999 5,896.1 8.0 551.1 384 26,334 255,401 2000 5,829.5 7.0 531.7 359 27,281 271,811 2001 6,077.8 7.5 540.3 400 28,675 293,874 2002 6,404.3 7.1 554.5 387 30,171 318,296 2003 6,106.0 7.9 472.0 441 26,334 314,335 2004 5,836.5 7.2 505.9 414 28,952 291,203 2005 5,416.2 7.6 519.4 445 30,478 287,345 2006 5,062.5 7.7 500.0 462 30,082 274,484 2007 4,846.2 7.5 469.4 463 28,950 269,918 2008 4,421.4 6.2 439.7 392 27,791 251,677 2009 3,951.5 5.0 402.8 324 26,094 229,872 Change: 2008-2009 -11% -19% - 8% -68 -1,697 -21,805 1995-2009 -52% -52% -44% -115 -4,001 -86,483 1990-2009 -50% -35% -38% 40 2,183 -35,357 (Sources: See Endnote 10 & 11) *Index (Part I) felonies combine violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) and property felonies (burglary, larceny/theft, motor vehicle theft). Offenses may be committed by either legal or illegal individuals, but crime rates are calculated from legal population numbers. Of particular relevance is the decline in overall arrests for the Hispanic population relative to all other groups. This drop in the Hispanic arrest rate shown in law enforcement reports directly contradicts public proclamations by the anti-immigration law’s supporters that Hispanics are responsible for a growing and disproportionate share of Arizona’s crime. Figure 1 and Table 3 show that for the recent years posted by the Arizona Department of Public Safety (2002-2009),13 arrest rates for Hispanics have declined considerably faster than for nonHispanics in Arizona. Since the Hispanic category includes illegal alien arrestees not separately tabulated, the populations for Hispanics are higher (and consequent arrest rates lower) than shown in the table. Even so, it is clear that Hispanics, regardless of status, are responsible for a falling, not rising, share of Arizona’s crime. 4 Table 3. Arizona crime trends by Hispanic ethnicity, 2002-2009 Arrest rates Offense category 2002 2009 Change All races All Part I offenses 927.8 816.7 -12% Violent crimes 171.2 143.2 -16% Drug offenses 550.5 539.0 - 2% Felony drug 93.1 67.9 -27% Drug possession 457.3 471.1 + 3% All offenses 5,628.9 5,163.0 - 8% Total state population Hispanic All Part I offenses 1,214.0 932.9 -23% Violent crimes 225.9 175.4 -22% Drug offenses 683.0 622.5 - 9% Felony drug 135.5 106.0 - 22% Drug possession 547.5 516.5 - 6% All offenses 6,498.8 5,297.2 - 18% Hispanic population Non Hispanic All Part I offenses 823.3 764.9 - 7% Violent crimes 151.2 128.8 -15% Drug offenses 502.1 501.7 0% Felony drug 77.7 50.9 -34% Drug possession 424.4 450.8 + 6% All offenses 5,311.4 5,103.2 - 4% Non-Hispanic population (Source: See Endnote 10) Arrest numbers 2002 2009 50,481 9,313 29,951 5,068 24,883 306,278 5,441,000 53,869 9,443 35,550 4,478 31,072 340,543 6,596,000 17,666 3,288 9,939 1,972 7,967 94,574 1,455,000 18,982 3,570 12,666 2,156 10,510 107,786 2,035,000 32,815 6,025 20,012 3,096 16,916 211,704 3,986,000 34,887 5,873 22,884 2,322 20,562 232,757 4,561,000 Figure 1. Change in Arizona crime rates, Hispanic and non-Hispanic arrestees, 2002-2009 0% All Part I offenses Violent offenses Drug offenses -7% -9% -15% -22% -23% Hispanic Non Hispanic (Source: See Endnote 10) 5 III. Arizona drug abuse: UP Since neither overall crime nor Hispanic offending is rising in Arizona, what lies behind recent fears over documented and undocumented Hispanic immigrants? The current law was partly justified by concern over the illicit drug trade and its role in spawning crime, including violence such as murder, kidnapping, assault, and robbery. However, since arrest rates of Hispanics for drug offenses have declined in recent years as drug arrest rates of non-Hispanic Arizonans have remained stable (Table 3, Figure 1), and felony drug manufacturing and sale arrests have declined sharply for all population groups, it is difficult to document an immigrant-driven drug epidemic. Table 4. Arizona drug deaths and rates per 100,000 population, 1990-2008 Drug death rate Year Number All Hispanic Non-Hispanic White 1990 172 4.7 4.0 4.9 1991 185 4.9 4.5 5.1 1992 281 7.2 6.0 7.3 1993 304 7.5 4.9 8.4 1994 356 8.4 6.1 8.5 1995 397 9.0 6.5 10.1 1996 404 8.8 7.4 9.2 1997 408 8.6 6.0 9.2 1998 508 10.4 7.6 11.5 1999 543 10.8 8.1 11.6 2000 617 11.9 7.9 13.5 2001 659 12.4 8.7 14.2 2002 654 12.0 7.7 13.7 2003 652 11.7 7.7 13.5 2004 747 13.0 6.8 15.9 2005 803 13.5 7.5 16.2 2006 908 14.7 8.1 17.9 2007 945 14.9 7.3 19.2 2008 953 14.7 5.5 19.8 Change, 1990-2008 454% 214% 36% 300% Change, 2000-2008 55% 24% -30% 47% (Sources: See Endnote 13) All other 4.0 4.1 8.4 6.3 12.3 6.4 9.2 10.7 9.8 12.6 12.2 10.8 12.9 11.2 11.7 13.4 14.7 11.3 12.0 199% -2% However, there is a clear and serious non-immigrant drug issue that is receiving little attention. Drug abuse involving illicit “street drugs” like heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine along with illegally obtained pharmaceutical drugs such as prescription opiates has skyrocketed in Arizona—even faster than elsewhere in the United States. The trend shown in Figure 2 and Tables 4 and 5, using illicit-drug overdose deaths and hospital emergency treatments as indexes, is clear. Over the last two decades, Arizona Department of Health Services tabulations14 show drug abuse has soared to the point that deaths caused directly by drug abuse (a record 953 in 2008) is now Arizona’s second leading cause of non-natural mortality, causing more deaths than motor vehicle crashes (891), firearms (879), alcohol abuse (772), all homicides (470), and AIDS (109) and lagging only all suicides (968, including those from drug overdoses). Unfortunately, the state’s drug death epidemic has been obscured by very large underestimates of deaths from 6 drug-related causes that only recently have been corrected, Arizona’s Vital Statistician acknowledged in April 2010.15 Figure 2. Arizona illicit drug death rates per 100,000 population by race, 1990-2008 20 15 10 5 0 1990 1995 Hispanic 2000 White 2005 2008 All other (Source: See Endnote 13) Arizona’s Hispanic population, whether citizens or noncitizens, contribute little to these drug abuse trends. Hispanics, one-third of Arizona’s population, comprise one-sixth of its drug deaths and just 10 percent of the growth in drug abuse since 1990. In contrast, non-Hispanic whites, 60 percent of the state’s population, account for 81 percent of the surge in drug abuse in recent years—a 300% per-capita rate increase—and now comprise 80 percent of the state’s illegal drug deaths.16 Table 5. Phoenix-area hospital emergency treatments for illicit drug abuse, 1995-2008 Rate per 100,000 population by race Case counts Year Total White Hispanic Total White Hispanic 1995 288.2 259.2 262.7 7,910 4,632 1,384 2000 279.0 297.8 228.4 9,072 5,350 1,544 2005 276.7 299.9 196.9 10,746 6,727 2,054 2008 271.6 339.1 134.8 11,635 7,899 1,985 Change - 6% 31% - 49% (Source: See Endnote 16). “White” is non-Hispanic of European origin. In the rate calculations, the 5-10% of cases listed as race/ethnicity unknown is apportioned to each race by known cases. Total includes races other than Whites and Hispanics not shown separately. Drug deaths constitute only a fraction of the drug abuse problem. A larger dimension is reflected in illicit-drug overdoses treated in hospital emergency rooms, which are 15 to 30 times more prevalent. Table 5 shows tabulations by the Drug Abuse Warning Network from 25 Phoenix area hospitals that have reported drug abuse treatment statistics consistently since the mid-1990s.17 In 1995, Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites had approximately the same rates of drug abuse 7 emergencies. Subsequently, White rates rose and Hispanic rates fell, so that by 2008, drug abuse emergency rates for Whites were 2.5 times higher than for Hispanics, as well as higher than for every other race. The decline in drug abuse cases involving Hispanics brought down the rate for the entire metropolitan area. These patterns recur in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s tabulations of drug addiction treatment cases by race/ethnicity and state.18 It is highly unusual for more affluent populations to suffer higher rates of death and injury from external causes. Since more affluent residents are able to access better health care that is not reflected in public databases and which often forestalls death, Arizona’s White drug abuse problem may be considerably larger than these figures indicate. Comparing Tables 3, 4, and 5, the question arises (as it does throughout the United States): Why, given that Whites constitute more than two-thirds of Arizona’s illicit-drug-related emergencies and 80 percent of illegal-drug abuse deaths, do Whites constitute just half of drug arrests? Conversely, Hispanics account for just one-sixth of drug-related deaths and ER cases, but 36 percent of drug arrests. Compared to their respective contributions to Arizona’s drug abuse toll, Hispanics are three times more likely to be arrested than are Whites. Prejudicial enforcement of drug laws, not Hispanic immigration, appears to account for the widespread misimpression that Hispanics are responsible for a disproportionate share of Arizona’s drug-related offenses. Figure 3. Phoenix-area hospital emergency cases for illicit drug abuse per 100,000 population by race/ethnicity, 1995-2008 339 298 300 259 263 228 197 135 1995 2000 White (not Hispanic) 2005 2008 Hispanic (Source: See Endnote 16) IV. Conclusion Claims that Hispanic immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are creating a crime and drug wave are contrary to the best information available from Arizona and national law enforcement, public health, and drug abuse monitoring agencies. By the best evidence, Hispanics, regardless of status, constitute the leading edge of Arizona’s rapidly declining crime rate and a decreasing proportion of Arizona’s rapidly increasing drug abuse crisis. The large 8 influx of Hispanic immigrants has promoted decreased crime, violence, and drug abuse compared to trends among Arizona’s existing resident populations. While Arizonans of all ethnicities have every right to be angry when criminals victimize innocent parties by drug-related crime and violence, blaming and punishing immigrants as a population appear unwarranted. The larger issue is that where a major demand for drugs (like any other commodity) exists, major suppliers will follow. Illicit drug-marketing violence— whether by Mexican nationals, illegal immigrants, or U.S. residents, whether by gangs or individual dealers or physicians, whether for street drugs or illicit pharmaceuticals—will continue as long as U.S. residents’ high demand for drugs “drives much of this illicit trade,” as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledges.19 Indeed, Mexico and other affected nations have expressed strong concern about the international chaos and violence surrounding the U.S.’s failure to stem continuing high demand for drugs. Estimates that the U.S. consumes as much as two-thirds of the world’s total illicit drug supply20 are difficult to confirm, but consistent international surveys reported by the United Nations’ Office of Drugs and Crime find U.S. per-capita rates of consumption of all types of illicit drugs are far higher than for other nations, both Western and non-Western.21 In a relevant comparison, rates of U.S. consumption of cocaine are 3.5 times higher, marijuana and amphetamines four times higher, and heroin and other opiates six times higher than for Mexico. Mexican and American drug dealers are gravitating to sell where the market and money are and will continue to do so as long as the U.S.’s drug abuse crisis stimulates demand. Unfortunately, ignoring compelling evidence of America’s debilitating drug abuse epidemic and the futility of blaming immigrants for it, some conservatives continue to denounce any discussion of U.S. drug demand and abuse as “blame America” capitulation.22 Arizona’s recent anti-immigrant policies represent the same misdirected reaction to perceived drug abuse crises repeatedly invoked over the last 150 years: political alarms and harsh crackdowns targeting “foreigners” and feared, powerless minority groups—that is, angry, emotional responses that inevitably bring later regret. Immigration, crime, and drug policy reforms are intimately linked and require a innovative, unified vision to avoid perpetuating historical racial extremism and the societal damage continued failure to realistically address America’s drug abuse fosters. Future papers in this series will present previously unanalyzed data from crime, health, and other agencies to detail the multiple crises U.S. drug-war policies have failed to address in California, other states, the nation as a whole, and globally. 9 Notes 1 Statemaster, Estimated number of illegal immigrants (most recent) by state, 2010. Posted at: http://www.statemaster.com/graph/peo_est_num_of_ill_imm-people-estimated-number-illegal-immigrants 2 U.S. Census Bureau, Population estimates, state characteristics. Posted for recent decades through 2010 at: http://www.census.gov/popest/states/asrh/ 3 Senate Bill 1070, State of Arizona, Senate, Forty-ninth Legislature, Second Regular Session, 2010. 4 Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, quoted in Associated Press, “Arizona gov: Most illegal immigrants smuggling drugs,” June 25, 2010. At: http://my.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20100625/23ceef0c-c016-4602-8c4eaee79e24f287 5 Statemaster, op cit. 6 See Arizona state Vital Statistician Christopher K. Mrela, who stated: “In my 24 years as Arizona Vital Statistician I have never experienced (and my professional work has not been impacted by) an error of this magnitude in coding the causes of mortality.” Arizona Department of Health Services, Misclassification of Underlying Cause of Death, April 2010. At http://www.azdhs.gov/plan/report/im/im/im08/misclassification.pdf 7 David F. Musto, “Opium, cocaine, and marijuana in American history,” Scientific American, July 1991, pp 40-47. 8 See, for example, “Negro cocaine fiends, new southern menace,” The New York Times, February 11, 1914. Wikipedia, Prohibition (drugs), 2010, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_(drugs). Erich Goode, Drugs in American Society, 5th edition, McGraw-Hill, 1999. 9 See Michael Gray, Drug Crazy: How We Got Into this Mess and How We Can Get Out, Random House, 1998. James A. Inciardi, The War on Drugs: Heroin, Cocaine, Crime, and Public Policy. Mayfield Publishing Company, 1986, p. 231. Lynn Zimmer, John P. Morgan, Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts, Lindesmith Center, 1997. Franklin E. Zimring, Gordon Hawkins, The Search for Rational Drug Control, Cambridge University Press, 1993. Wikipedia, Harry J. Anslinger, 2010. at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger 10 US Census Bureau, op cit. 11 Arizona Department of Public Safety, Crime in Arizona, posted for the years 2002-2009 at: http://www.azdps.gov/About/Reports/Crime_In_Arizona/ 12 FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), Uniform Crime Reports (Crime in the United States), Offenses reported to law enforcement, January to December 2009. Posted at: www.fbi.gov/ucr/prelimsem2009/table_4.html. 13 Arizona Department of Public Safety, Crime in Arizona, op cit. 14 Arizona Department of Health Services, Injury Mortality, Drug-related deaths, Arizona, 1998-2008. Posted at: http://www.azdhs.gov/plan/report/im/im/im08/8/index.htm 15 Op. cit. Endnote 2. 16 CDC (Centers for Disease Control), Compressed mortality file, underlying cause of death, Posted for years 19792006 at: http://wonder.cdc.gov/mortSQL.html. NCIPC (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control), WISQARS injury mortality reports. Posted for years 1981-2007 at: http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html. Arizona Department of Health Services, op cit. 17 Drug Abuse Warning Network, Detailed tables: Metropolitan area estimates, drug-related Emergency Department visits. Posted at: https://dawninfo.samhsa.gov/data/default.asp?met=Met 18 SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), Drug admissions table for Arizona. Posted at: http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/tedsweb/tab_year.choose_year_web_table?t_state=AZ 19 Clinton, Hillary, “Clinton: U.S. drug use fuels Mexico cartels,” MSNBC/Associated Press, March 23, 2010. Posted at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35996797/ns/world_news-americas/ 20 Califano, J. Jr., High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It, Public Affairs, 2008. 21 United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2009, Posted at: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/WDR-2009.html 22 See Ray Walser, “U.S. strategy against Mexican drug cartels: Flawed and uncertain, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2407, April 26, 2010, at: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/04/US-Strategy-AgainstMexican-Drug-Cartels-Flawed-and-Uncertain 10 About the Authors Mike A. Males, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice Mike A. Males is a Senior Research Fellow at Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. He has contributed research and writing to numerous CJCJ reports, including the "The Color of Justice, an Analysis of Juvenile Adult Court Transfers in California," "Drug Use and Justice: An Examination of California Drug Policy Enforcement," and "The Impact of California's Three Strikes Law on Crime Rates." Dr. Males has a Ph.D. in social ecology from U.C. Irvine and formerly taught sociology at U.C. Santa Cruz. With over 12 years of experience working in youth programs, his research interests are focused on youth issues like crime, drug abuse, pregnancy and economics. He is the author of dozens of articles and four books, the latest of which is Kids and Guns: How Politicians, Experts, and the Press Fabricate Fear of Youth. Recent articles and opeds have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The American Journal of Public Health, The Lancet, Journal of School Health, and Scribner's Encyclopedia of Violence in America. Mr. Males would like to thank Catherine McCracken, Director of Development and the Sentencing Service Program at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, for providing invaluable editorial assistance. Daniel Macallair MPA, Executive Director, Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice Daniel Macallair is the Executive Director and a co-founder of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. Mr. Macallair’s expertise is in the development and analysis of correctional policy for youth and adult offenders and has implemented model programs throughout the country. In the past ten years his programs received national recognition and were cited as exemplary models by the United States Department of Justice and Harvard University’s Innovations in American Government program. In 1994, Mr. Macallair received a leadership award from the State of Hawaii for his efforts in reforming that state’s juvenile correctional system. He has been a consultant to juvenile justice systems around the country and frequently provides expert assistance on correctional practices and juvenile justice reform. Mr. Macallair’s research and publications have appeared in such journals as the Stanford Law and Policy Review, Journal of Crime and Delinquency, Youth and Society, Journal of Juvenile Law and Policy, and the Western Criminology Review. His studies and commentary are often cited in national news outlets. Mr. Macallair has copublished two books on juvenile justice reform and policy and co-authored two recent studies on the California youth corrections system. He teaches in the Department of Criminal Justice Studies at San Francisco State University and is an invited speaker and trainer at conferences and seminars throughout the country. For more information please contact: Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 440 9th Street San Francisco, CA 94103 (415) 621-5661 cjcj@cjcj.org www.cjcj.org The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that offers policy analysis, program development, and technical assistance in the criminal justice field.