If the prison system is working <i>at all</i> we would expect to see violent crime drop as the prison population increases.  There&#x27;s a profit motive as well but we have to remember why societies build prisons in the first place.<p>Only 10% of California&#x27;s prisoners have <i>never</i> been convicted of a violent crime.  I doubt they all need to be locked up but I&#x27;m not seeing those prisons as being filled with peaceful drug dealers like the rumor has it.<p>I would guess in New Hampshire there isn&#x27;t much of an immigrant population.  I just looked it up and it&#x27;s about 93% white there.  My state&#x27;s about 2&#x2F;3&#x27;s white, I live in a part of town where I don&#x27;t walk around after dark because I might get jumped for being white which does affect my perspective.  I have neighbors who immigrated from Mexico decades ago and still don&#x27;t even speak basic english.  I&#x27;m not saying my state should become all white or anything like that, but maybe we&#x27;ve reached a good mix and we could deal with the problems our hispanic and black communities already have because that&#x27;s a challenge as it is.  We&#x27;re struggling to get them to stop killing each other, make it through high school and to read at a basic level.  If we can&#x27;t do that I don&#x27;t know why we think we can take on even more people.