According to a recent study published by the Public Policy Institute of California, both legal and illegal immigrants in the Golden State are less likely to serve prison terms for crimes than U.S.-born Americans.

After analyzing the cases of inmates in California prisons, the researchers concluded that there are 2.5 times more U.S.-born men in prison cells than foreign-born men. Immigrants comprise 35 percent of the adult population in California, but they make up only 17 percent of prisoners. Combined with data from the Census Bureau on prisoners in county jails and halfway houses, this gap only widens. Among men aged 18 to 40 – the age group most likely to commit a crime – U.S.-born men are 10 times more likely to be in prison than immigrants.

“There are many immigration problems that are cause for concern,” said Kristin Butcher, one of the report’s authors. “But I would like to note that spending public safety funds on decreasing the flow of immigrants has no significant effect on public safety. Immigration is a hot topic right now. Calls to curtail immigration, especially illegal immigration, are tailored to the fear Americans have about crime that immigrants are supposedly engaged in.”

There are also fewer illegal immigrants in prison than U.S.-born Americans. Since records from state prisons and the Census Bureau do not indicate the status of prisoners, the researchers used information about birthplace and citizenship to focus on one specific group – noncitizen Mexican men aged 18 to 40. Members of this group are more likely to have entered the country illegally than members of any other group. The study showed that U.S.-born men in this age group are eight times more likely to be in prison than noncitizen Mexicans. This is even more surprising considering that most illegal immigrants are young and poorly-educated men, which puts them in the group most likely to commit crimes.

Butcher noted that sometimes data from federal prisons supports the idea that immigrants commit many crimes: in these institutions, they make up 19 percent of the population, which is greater than the overall percentage of immigrants in the country. However, federal prisoners make up only eight percent of the total number of prisoners. Such a small group cannot be used to make generalizations.

The report’s authors do not attempt to explain why the crime rate among immigrants is significantly lower than it is among U.S.-born Americans, but Butcher did suggest two possibilities. First, by law, foreigners with a criminal record are not allowed to immigrate. Second, the majority of those who come here legally do so to work, not to commit crimes.

“If you come here to earn money to support your family, then obviously you don’t want to end up in prison for a misdemeanor like spraying graffiti," explained Butcher.