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Hispanics are overrepresented in the nation's criminal justice system, with Hispanic defendants imprisoned three times as often and detained before trial for first-time offenses almost twice as often as whites, despite being the least likely of all ethnic groups to have a criminal history, a report released today has found. Commissioned by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization, the report - Lost Opportunities: The Reality of Latinos in the U.S. Criminal Justice System - also found that Hispanics represented 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2000, but accounted for 31 percent of those incarcerated in the federal criminal justice system. Hispanics have one chance in six of being confined in prison during their lifetimes, the authors found. "It is apparent that the criminal justice system in this country is neither fair nor just for Hispanics," said Janet Murguia, NCLR's executive director and chief operating officer. "Recent polls show that Latinos care very much about protecting public safety and fighting crime, but they recognize that being tough on crime is not always the same as being smart on crime. Our community is losing a whole generation of people, and that is a national tragedy. [more

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