KHOW's Caplis failed to correct caller's claim that 40 percent of California inmates are illegal immigrants

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

On his December 5 broadcast, Dan Caplis of 630 KHOW-AM did not challenge a caller who asserted that “in the California penal system ... 40 percent of the inmates were illegal immigrants.” The caller cited a guest on Peter Boyles' KHOW show as the source of the figure, but as Colorado Media Matters has noted when similar statistics were promoted on previous Boyles broadcasts, noncitizens -- which include both legal and illegal immigrants -- comprised only 9 percent of federal and state inmates in California prisons at midyear 2006.

During the December 5 broadcast of his 630 KHOW-AM show, co-host Dan Caplis failed to correct a caller when she claimed that “40 percent of the inmates” in the “California penal system” are “illegal immigrants.” In fact, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics published in June, noncitizens -- legal and illegal combined -- made up only 9 percent (15,849 out of 175,115) of federal and state prisoners held in California at midyear 2006, as Colorado Media Matters has noted.

Discussing a controversial new anti-immigration political ad produced by U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo's (R-CO) presidential campaign, a caller stated that 630 KHOW-AM host Peter Boyles had a guest on his show that morning “talking about the Mexican mafia.” She then claimed that the guest said “in the California penal system ... 40 percent of the inmates were illegal immigrants.” After the caller concluded her comment by saying that gangs give illegal immigrants “more availability to ... feel like more at home,” Caplis said, “Sure, sure.”

From the December 5 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Caplis & Silverman show:

CALLER: The ad is very, very powerful. This morning Peter Boyles had a guest talking about the Mexican mafia and that, I think it was in the California penal system, there was 40 percent of the inmates were illegal immigrants. And it's getting worse because they don't simulate. He was kind of making the point that they don't simulate; they don't try to become Americans. And therefore a lot of them come over, they're introduced to the gangs. And I believe that not necessarily they have in their heart they want to become a criminal, but I think because they're not institutionalized in the sense of being American or trying to simulate into that culture, they go into places where the gangs give them more availability to be more, feel like more at home.

CAPLIS: Sure, sure.

CALLER: So therefore they're entered into more criminal background and they have more support that way. So I think that if you, first of all, cut off the borders, and I mean very powerfully --

CAPLIS: [Caller], I'm so sorry to interrupt. We're just trying to focus on the ad today rather than the overall broader solutions, but I appreciate your thoughts on the ad and I agree with you. I think it's an effective ad and folks need to think about that criminal element.

In addition to the U.S. Department of Justice statistics, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's fourth quarter 2006 Jail Profile Survey Report, of the average daily county jail population of 81,612, only 9,350 -- or 11.46 percent -- were classified as “criminal/illegal aliens.”

As Colorado Media Matters noted, Boyles on his August 20 show allowed frequent guest Terry Anderson to state that illegal immigrants comprise “between 25 and 30” percent of California's prison population. Boyles made a similar claim on his August 14 broadcast, stating that “25 percent of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.”