qJ •!VERSIT\' Lrexas·~~·.:~ ~~g::sT BUSINESSLIBRARIES The Bureau of Business Research 1 Centers of Technology in the Southwest Edward J. Malecki 6 Regional Attitudes toward Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment Ernest H. Wohlenberg 11 Report of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy: A Critique Vernon M. Briggs, Jr. 16 An Evaluation of President Reagan's Proposed Immigration Policy Lewis E. Hill and Charles E. Butler 19 Jail Overcrowding: The Search for Solutions Marianne Hopper and Cliff Roberson 23 Traffic Accident Profiles for High-Risk Texas Drivers Sarah C. Sitton 27 Regional Differences in State Legislation on Cigarette Smoking Kenneth E. Warner 30 Demographic and Economic Change in the South William J. Serow and Dudley L. Poston 34 State and Local Tax Bills: How Do Residents of Large U.S. Cities Fare? F. Jay Cummings 40 Defense Spending and Regional Industrial Change John Rees 45 Holding Companies in Regulated Industries: Case Studies in the Sunbelt Edward L. Sattler January-February 1982 Texas Business Review reports the results of research in business, the social sciences, and the physical sciences in language that is readily understandable. Our readership includes policy makers in government, members of the busi­ness community, university faculty, and the general public. Articles focus on topics of special interest to readers both in Texas and throughout the Southwest and South. These topics include energy, inflation, manufacturing, population, labor, public policy, transportation, the small business, regional economic development, and other related areas. Because Texas Business Review encourages a free exchange of ideas, opinions expressed in articles are those of individual authors and not neces­sarily those of the editors or the Bureau of Business Research. Texas BUSINESS The Bureau of Business Research • ev1ew The University of Texas at Austin Vol. 56, No. 1 January-February 1982 Bureau of Business Research Charles C. Holt, Director Review Staff Joseph E. Pluta, Editor Lois Glenn, Publications Manager Charles F. Dameron, Jr., Managing Editor Mary Jo Powell, Editorial Assistant Mildred Anderson, Data Compilation Jean Stenger, Computer Graphics Robert T. Jenkins, Production Assistant Joan F. Dameron, Compositor Meade E. Collard, Compositor Editorial Advisory Board Vernon M. Briggs, Jr. Cornell University George G. Daly University ofHouston John F. Due University ofIllinois Peter C. Frederiksen Naval Postgraduate School Malcolm Gillis Harvard University Robert W. Gilmer Tennessee Valley Authority John Stuart Hall Arizona State University Jared E. Hazleton University of Washington William H. Leahy University ofNotre Dame Charles G. Leathers University ofAlabama Edward J. Malecki University of Oklahoma Charles E. McLure Stanford University Edward M. Miller Rice University Jerome Olson University of Texas at Austin Thomas R. Plaut University of Texas at A ustin James P. Rakowski Memphis State University James A. Richardson Louisiana State University R. Lynn Rittenoure University of Tulsa William J. Serow Florida State University Joseph A. Ziegler University ofArkansas Subscription rate: $20.00 per year. Single copy: $3.50. Published six times a year. Second-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Publication number 540-400. ISSN 0040­4209. Copyright © 1982, Bureau of Business Research, University of Texas at Austin. Address manuscripts to Editor, Texas Business Review, P.O. Box 7459, Austin, Texas 78712. Address subscription inquiries to Sales Office, Bureau of Business Research, P.O. Box 7459, Austin, Texas 78712. Telephone: 512-471-1616. Texas Business Review is indexed in Marketing Information Guide and Public Affairs Information Service and is available on microfilm from University Microfilms. Centers of Technology in the Southwest Technology, research, and innovation are distributed rather unequally in the Southwest. Among the six states of the region (Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas) only Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas have been above the national average in industrial or federal research and development (R&D) in recent years. Each of these states, however, has a somewhat different specializa­tion, largely supported by federal interests. New Mexico's industrial base is concerned primarily with energy research, whereas Texas and Arizona depend greatly on military re­search and production. Texas shows considerable diversity, with both defense and NASA centers and major universi­ties. Of all the southwestern state economies, the Texas economy is likely to be most able to benefit from changing technologies and federal budget allocations. Elsewhere in the Southwest, Oklahoma and Louisiana have some tech­nological activity in Tulsa and New Orleans, but these two states and Arkansas lag behind the other three states in technical employment opportunities and other economic benefits that accrue from federal and industrial R&D. Technological change and its inputs, especially R&D activity, tend to indicate the relative strength of a region's industrial base and economic flexibility . New products, new firms, and entire new industries result from R&D, which focuses on products, while other technological change generates cost reductions and process improve­ments. Both types of technological change are thought to be major contributors to economic growth nationally ; regional growth differentials are also attributable to geo­graphical variation in technological capability. Interstate Comparisons In a state-by-state comparison, the six states in the Southwest form two distinct groups. One group, consisting of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, ranks near or above the national average for most indicators of scientific and &lwud J. Malecki is Associate Professor of Geography, University ofOklahoma at Norman. JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1982 Edward J. Malecki technological activity. (An exception for all three states is industrial R&D.) Especially where federal funds are in­volved, these three states appear to have the specialized in­dustrial base required for high-technology research and production. None of the three states ranks above average in all categories, however, suggesting that particular special­ties are dominant in each state. New Mexico is above the national norms for most federal R&D categories but not for defense-related production contracts. All three states have adequate supplies of scientists and engineers in their labor forces, but only Texas and Arizona appear to be competi­tive in defense-related contracts other than R&D, in which New Mexico dominates the region. All three states have excellent university systems and rank nationally with the best research institutions in the nation. The second group of states-Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma-is markedly less competitive with the rest of the region as well as the rest of the nation. All three states are consistently well below U.S. norms and much lower than the other three states, which dominate technology in the Southwest. Table 1 Industrial R&D Indicators in the Southwest Industrial R&D laboratories Total industrial R&D for each million per capita,• 1977 State in population, 1979 (in dollars) Arizona 40.4 85.11 New Mexico 37.2 t Texas 32.4 73.64 Oklahoma 21.5 49.31 Louisiana 12.1 26.70 Arkansas 9.6 4.57 U.S. average 46.8 137.16 •Includes federal and industrial funds. tData withheld by the National Science Foundation. Sources: Jaques Cattell Press, Industrial Research Laboratories of the United States, 16th ed. (New York: Bowker, 1979); and National Science Foundation, Research and Development in Industry, 1977 (Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation, 1979), table B-22. Industrial R&D Industrial efforts to create and improve new products and production technologies are among the most significant categories of technology. Most such efforts take place in aerospace, electronics, pharmaceuticals (including bio­technology), and the manufacture of scientific instruments. Business firms have far fewer R&D facilities than they have manufacturing plants, and the former tend to be found in locations, such as large urban areas, that attract and keep research personnel. In this regard, the Southwest is at some­what of a disadvantage compared to other states. All six states in the region fall below the U.S. average both in numbers of R&D laboratories for each million in popula­tion and in total industrial R&D performed (see table 1). The rankings on these two indicators are identical (if New Mexico's withheld figure for total industrial R&D per­formed is assumed to keep it in second place), and two groups of states within the region are discernible. Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas make up a group of states that, while still below the national norms, are above 50 percent of the U.S. average. Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas are well below these other southwestern states in industrial R&D activity. Although these latter three states have suc­cessfully attempted to attract industry, corporate decisions to locate in the area have primarily involved routine manu­facturing jobs rather than the highly skilled work associated with product and technology development. Federal Government R&D Much southwestern R&D activity has been either direct­ly or indirectly supported by the federal government. The principal funding agencies for this work are the Department. of Defense, Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Federal R&D projects are carried out by corporations under con­tract, in house or intramurally by federal agencies, and by universities, colleges, and other research institutions. A Table 2 Federal R&D Expenditures Per Capita in the Southwest, 1979 (In dollars) Intramural Industrial State performers contractors To tal• New Mexico Texas Arizona Louisia na Oklahoma Arkansas 175.00 18 .95 26.22 7 .62 12.48 10.58 100.2 1 52.36 33.2 6 36.82 4 .37 1.15 789.70 87.45 85 .72 52 .67 24.34 17 .0 2 U.S. average 33.00 58 .76 128 .03 •Total includes R&D performed by universities and colleges and nonprofit institutions as well as that conducted by contractors at federally funded research and develo pment centers. Source: National Science Foundation, Federal Funds for Research and Development, Fiscal Years 1979, 1980, and 1981 (Detailed Statistical Tables) (Washington, D.C.: National Science Founda­tion, 1980}, p. 138. gray area of federal R&D applies to the work performed at federally funded R&D centers by contracfors, usually industrial firms or universities. These kinds of facilities are primarily used by the Department of Energy. The only major facilities of this type in the Southwest are Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, administered by the Univer­sity of California, and Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque, operated by American Telephone and Telegraph Company. The Los Alamos and Sandia facilities are responsible for New Mexico's overwhelming standing in relation to the rest of the Southwest in federal R&D expenditures (see table 2). In 1979 New Mexico received over six times the U.S. aver­age in per capita federal R&D funds, largely at the two De­partment of Energy laboratories. Even excluding federally Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona have the specialized industrial base needed for high-technology R & D. funded R&D centers, New Mexico accounts for nearly twice the per capita R&D done by industrial firms. Once again, the dichotomy between New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona and the other three states stands out, but only New Mexico has above-average federal R&D. Arkansas and Oklahoma each account for less than 20 percent of the U.S. average. Scientists and Engineers in the Labor Force The definition of R&D can exclude some activities that may contribute significantly to technological change and economic growth. In general, many skilled and trained workers may be involved in experimental research that is not considered part of R&D but is concerned with Table 3 Scientific and Engineering Employment in the Southwest, for Each Thousand in Population, 1978 Scientists and Electrical and engineers fun ded electro nic by Department Tot al scientists State engineers of Defense and engineers New Mexico 0 .90 1.45 6.56 Texas 0 .48 0 .54 4 .34 Arizona I.O S 0 .7 6 4.2 1 Oklahoma 0 .30 0 .19 3.56 Louisiana 0 .20 0 .1 7 3.22 Arkansas 0 .80 0 .10 1.99 U.S. average 0 . 54 0 .6 9 4 .35 So urce: National Science Foundation, Characteristics of Experi­enced Scientists and E ngineers, 1978 (Washingto n, D.C .: Nation­al Science Foundation, 1979), tables B-36 and B-39. production and improvements. Tabulations of such workers are difficult to make, since job categories vary and the level of skills required in different sectors will also vary. Con­sequently, scientists and engineers are often used as a proxy for such technical personnel. In the category of electrical and electronic engineers, a proxy for the high-technology electronics industry and a source of considerable economic growth recently, only Arizona and New Mexico are above the U.S. average, while Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas are well below the national norm (see table 3). Texas is in third place. The same ranking appears for scientists and en­gineers working on Defense Department projects, although here the two subregions are even more distinct. In total scientists and engineers, only New Mexico stands clearly above the U.S. average, while Texas and Arizona are only slightly beneath it. In this labor force indicator, Oklahoma and Louisiana are somewhat closer to the national figure, in part because petroleum engineers are included in this category. Defense Contracts Military spending has been an especially important source of economic growth in the Southwest in recent years. Contracts for procurement of hardware items and R&D and payrolls for military and civilian personnel on military bases have been particularly significant. The South and West received well over the U.S. average for per capita defense payrolls in fiscal year 1978, primarily because of the large number of military bases in these regions. Defense contracts were also above average in the West, but the South trailed both the West and Northeast in these con­tracts.1 Such comparisons between large regions disguise a con­siderable amount of intraregional variation (see table 4). Texas is clearly a major recipient of prime contracts, largely for airframes (in which Texas ranks second nationally) and electronic and communication equipment, both high­technology goods. Arizona is also above average in military contracts and in high-technology categories. The other four states, including New Mexico, are well below the U.S. average for defense prime contracts. Perhaps more impor­tant, however, is the fact that none of their top categories of contracts is a hardware item or one that typically in­volves new technology. Petroleum as a contract category contributes little to the fostering of a long-term industrial base, especially in comparison to electronics, from which many spin-offs and commercial possibilities have grown. In the sense of prime procurement contracts, then, the Southwest is subdivided even more clearly, with only Texas and Arizona benefiting from the high-technology portion of defense spending. Subcontracting data recently disclosed by the Defense Department present a more meaningful picture of the dis­tribution of defense spending. The state-by-state distribu­tion of subcontracts is monitored, however, only for prime contracts over $500,000 and excludes such items as fuel, subsistence, and utilities. The exclusion of fuel, in particu­lar, reduces the prominence of such oil-producing states as Louisiana and Oklahoma. Texas and Arizona remain impor­tant recipients of large defense prime contracts and are the only southwestern states that are above average in such contracts. About 55 percent of the prime contracts award­ed in Texas, however, are subcontracted outside the state (mostly to California, Vermont, and New Jersey), leaving the state's net contract work below the national norm. 2 In general, states in the Southwest fail to retain their subcontracts within their boundaries (see table 5). Only New Mexico keeps an above-average percentage of its sub­contracts; all the other states send at least 85 percent of their contract funds to other states. (By contrast, Cali­fornia, the nation's premier defense industry location, retains over 54 percent of its subcontracts.) Also, Louisi­ana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas receive virtually no contracts for military R&D testing and evaluation. New Mexico, at the other extreme, receives well over the national average per capita of such contracts. University Research An additional category of scientific and technological activity is that conducted at the universities and colleges Table 4 Defense Prime Contracts and Major Categories in the Southwest, 1979 Large prime contracts per capita Prime contracts Net contracts over Total contracts Per capita Largest con- Second largest over $500,000* $500,000 after subcontracts State (in millions of dollars) (in dollars) tract category contract category (in dollars) (in dollars) Texas 2,778.4 332.31 Airframes Electronics 187.05 83.11 Arizona 540.2 300.21 Electronics Missile and space systems 148.72 190.21 Louisiana 390.7 230.17 Petroleum Construction 42.02 42.77 Oklahoma 292.8 115.66 Petroleum Services 25.66 24.27 New Mexico 160.0 108.66 Services Petroleum 74.05 74.30 Arkansas 70.5 54.98 Construction Textiles 18.86 13.20 U.S. total 56,653.1 266.54 Aircraft Missile and space systems 102.22 102.22 *Excludes contracts for utilities, fuel, wood products, subsistence, and ores and minerals. Source: For first four columns: U.S. Department of Defense, Military Prime Contract Awards by Region and State, Fiscal Years 1977, 1978 and 1979 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1980). For last two columns: U.S. Department of Defense, Geographic Distribution ofSubcontract A wards, Fiscal Year 1979 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1980), pp. 7-9. within the region. A major portion of university research twelve urban areas, only five have above-average levels of is in biomedical and health-related areas, supported pri­industrial R&D (measured by labs per one million popula­marily by federal funds from the National Institutes of tion): Albuquerque, Austin, Tulsa, Houston-Galveston, and Health. Other areas, such as engineering and computer Phoenix. Dallas-Fort Worth and Tucson are close to the science, are funded substantially by industry. A picture of national figure; the other five cities are generally well below total R&D expenditures (for all fields) in the Southwest it. As the interstate comparisons would suggest, urban shows that eleven of the nation's top one hundred research concentrations of industrial R&D are generally higher in institutions are found in the region (see table 6). Five of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Tulsa stands out within these are in the state of Texas, including three major medi­Oklahoma as a notable site of R&D activity. The urban cal centers. An additional thirteen regional institutions are areas of Albuquerque, Phoenix, and Tucson keep their ranked in the second one hundred. The University of Texas sparsely populated states well represented in R&D. In at Austin and Texas A&M University perform more R&D Texas, with its larger population, technology and innova­than such schools as Yale University and the California tion are more concentrated, especially in the urban areas of Institute of Technology. Among states with more than one Houston-Galveston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Austin. state university in the top twen­ ty, only California outranks Tex- Table 5 as in terms of university R&D at state institutions. Defense Subcontracting and Prime Contracts for Research, A state-by-state comparison Development, Testing, and Evaluation in the South-st, 1979 of university research, employ- Prime contracts for research, devel­ ing total R&D conducted at all colleges and universities, finds State Percentage of intrastate subcontracts opment, testing, and evaluation (per capita, in dollars) Texas to be fourth nationally New Mexico 38.3 54.55 (behind California, New York, and Massachusetts) in total uni­versity R&D and slightly above Texas Arizona Oklahoma Arkansas 14.9 8.2 6.7 1.1 25.18 33.93 1.21 0.32 the national per capita average Louisiana o.o 2.02 (see table 7). Arizona and New U.S. average 22.8 38.77 Mexico are both well above the Sources: U.S. Department of Defense, Geographic Distribution of Subcontract Awards, Fiscal Year U.S. average, while the other 1979 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1980); and U.S. Department of Defense, Military three southwestern states are Prime Contract Awards by Region and State, Fiscal Years 1977, 1978 and 1979 (Washington, considerably below the U.S. D.C.: Department of Defense, 1980). average. Table 6 Interurban Comparisons Total R&D Expenditures at Universities and Collages in the Southwest, 1979 Even with states, technologi­cal ability is distributed uneven­ly. The obvious urban-rural con­trast is not the only one that stands out. A comparative analy­sis of metropolitan areas in the Southwest reveals that many of the region's major urban areas are not competitive in technolo­gy, despite rather widespread growth of other types. Industrial R&D The top twelve urban areas in the Southwest in the number of R&D facilities operated by ma­jor firms include most of the re­gion's larger cities (see table 8). 3 (These twelve are the only ur­ R&D National expenditures Institution rank (in millions of dollars) University of Texas at Austin Texas A&M University University of Arizona Louisiana State University University of Texas Cancer Center, Houston Baylor College of Medicine University of New Mexico University of Texas Health Science Center, Dallas University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Oklahoma State University New Mexico State University University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston Texas Tech University University of Houston Central Campus University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio University of Oklahoma, Norman Arizona State University University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston University of Texas at Dallas New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology University of Oklahoma Health Science Center University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Campus North Texas State University Texas Christian University 16 18 26 36 51 52 67 74 78 80 83 103 111 115 117 130 135 136 155 163 168 173 189 200 69.7 63.3 58.1 44.8 34.7 33.7 25.5 22.6 20.8 20.3 19.6 13.8 12.1 11.9 11.5 8.8 8.1 8.0 6.1 5.4 4.9 4.6 3.3 2.6 ban areas with eight or more in­ Source: National Science Foundation, Academic Science: R&D Funds Fiscal Year 1979 (Washingtondustrial R&D labs.) Of the D.C.: National Science Foundation, 1981), pp. 17-20. ' ' Federal Government R&D In four southwestern metropolitan areas federal R&D expenditures in 1977 were above national norms: Albu­querque ($426. 7 million), Houston-Galveston ($393.0 million), Dallas-Fort Worth ($379.3 million), and New Orleans ($159.9 million).4 Each of these urban areas is quite specialized in its source of support. Major NASA operations in New Orleans and Houston are not comple­mented by defense or energy technology; these are found in Dallas-Fort Worth and Albuquerque. These urban areas­except New Orleans-are well represented in industrial R&D and may be considered major centers of technology in the Southwest. Tabla 7 University R&D in the Southwest by State, 1979 Per thousand Total R&D population State (in thousands of dollars) (in dollars) Texas 314,998 24.21 Arizona 67 ,125 28.56 Louisiana 63,354 15.96 New Mexico 51,614 42.66 Oklahoma 35,081 12.18 Arkansas 28,247 12.90 U.S. total 5,182,729 23.77 Source: National Science Foundation, Academic Science: R&D Funds, Fiscal Year 1979 (Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation, 1981), p. 14. Tabla8 Industrial R&D Laboratories in Metropolitan Areas in the Southwest Laboratories per Number of R&D million population Metropolitan area laboratories, 1979 (national average=45) Houston-Galveston 172 61.6 Dallas-Fort Worth 115 42.3 Phoenix 74 57.2 Tulsa 43 68.4 Austin 40 83.7 Albuquerque 37 90.5 New Orleans 23 20.2 Tucson 20 43.3 Baton Rouge 17 38.2 San Antonio 13 12.5 Oklahoma City 9 11.4 Little Rock 8 21.3 Source: Jaques Cattell Press, ed., Industrial Research Laboratories of the United States, 16th ed. (New York: Bowker, 1979). Notes 1. The U.S. Census Bureau includes Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana in the South, whereas New Mexico and Arizona are in the West. For further comparison of regional defense contracts see Charles I. Hendler and J. Norman Reid, Federal Outlays in Fiscal 1978: A Comparison ofMetropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas, Rural Development Research Report No. 25 (Washirtgton, D.C.: Department of Agriculture, 1980), p. 31. 2. Texas, as well as the Sunbelt as a whole, tends to subcontract largely to firms in other industrial states. See John Rees' article in this issue. 3. For research methods as well as similar findings in a related study, see Edward J. Malecki, "Locational Trends in R&D by Large U.S. Corporations, 1965-1977," Economic Geography 55 (October 1979): 309-23. 4. Edward J. Malecki, Regional Economic Effects of Federal R&D Spending: A Study ofU.S. Metropolitan Areas (Norman: University of Oklahoma, Department of Geography, 1980). ... Atlases. For research, reference, or just plain curiosity. Atlas of Texas Stanley A. Arbingast et al.' 1976. 1 79 pages. 11" x 14" spiral bound. Sketches by Buck Schiwetz and Charles Beckendorf; many color maps. $25. "Among state atlases, this volume is second to none." -Southwestern Historical Quarterly "An almost inexhaustible mine of factual informa­tion about the state, its history, its development, its resources, and its people." -The Cattleman Atlas of Mexico Stanley A. Arbingast et al. 1975. 164 pages. 11" x 14" spiral bound. $20. "An excellent compilation of over 200 maps plus tables." -The American Cartographer "All school libraries should have it and all Mexi­canists will want it." -journal of Geography Atlas of Central America Stanley A. Arbingast et al. 1979. 70 pages. 11" x 14" spiral bound. $18. "Very well done." -North American Congress on Latin America "The only cartographic treatment of the Central American region published in English since 1955." -The American Cartographer Bureau of Business Research P.O. Box 7459 •Austin, Texas 78712 ... .II Regional Attitudes toward Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment Ernest H. W ohlenherg On March 22, 1972, prospects for rapid approval of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution (which extends equal rights to all citizens regardless of sex) appeared bright. On that date the amendment was submit­ted to the states after having passed both houses of Con­gress by a wide margin. The proposed ERA had become a cornerstone for the contemporary phase of the women's rights movement and has come to have great symbolic meaning and importance to opponents and proponents alike. Although the amendment still had to be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states before it could become a part of the Constitution, in 1972 few doubted that a measure with such widespread popular support could help but gain approval in short order. The majority who be­lieved ratification was imminent had, however, failed to reckon either with the political clout of the Stop-ERA group and its leader, Phyllis Schlafly, or the wave of reli­gious and political conservatism that swept across the country as the 1 970s progressed. Regional Differences in Ratifying the ERA Prospects for enactment of the ERA now appear dim, al­though many states acted quickly to ratify it within months of Senate passage in 1972. Fewer states approved the ERA each succeeding year until 197 6, at which time the ratifica­tion process stagnated except for one final ratification in 1977 (see box). No states have ratified the ERA since then. Three more must do so if it is to become law. The original deadline for final passage of the amendment was March 22, 1979, but the U.S. Congress granted an extension until June 30, 1982. In spite of public opinion polls that consis­tently show that a substantial majority of the American people support the ERA, the second deadline is approach­ing rapidly and the amendment's many supporters seem helpless in their efforts to avert its impending defeat at the hands of the remaining state legislatures. 1 Ernest H. Wohlenberg is Associate Professor of Geography, Indiana University. Most of the states that failed to pass the ERA in the first few years after congressional passage were southern or far western, although a block of heartland states from Ohio to Oklahoma were early holdouts also (see figure). The states that were prompt ratifiers, on the other hand, fell into three somewhat distinct groups: one in the east from New England southwestward to Tennessee; one in the Midwest extending from the northern Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains; and a third on the West Coast. Further light is shed on the regional distribution of the states ratifying the ERA if states are grouped according to year of adoption and census division (see table). At one ex- Chronology of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) 1923 An ERA was first introduced in the U.S. Congress. October 12, 1971 U.S. House of Representatives approved the ERA. March 22, 1972 U.S. Senate approved the ERA. 1972 Twenty-two states approved the ERA. 1973 An additional eight states ap­proved the ERA. 1974 An additional three states ap­proved the ERA. 1975 One additional state approved the ERA. 1977 One additional state approved the ERA. October 6, 1978 U.S. Congress approved an ex­tension of the ratification dead­line from March 22, 1979, to June 30, 1982. March 22, 1979 The original ratification deadline passed with only thirty-five of the necessary thirty-eight states having ratified the ERA. treme, all of the states in the Middle Atlantic division ap­proved the ERA the first year. At the other extreme, only 25 percent of the states in the West South Central and Mountain divisions approved the ERA the first year. Only 25 percent, 37 percent, and 50 percent of the states in the West South Central, South Atlantic, and East South Central regions have ever approved the ERA. One-third of all the states failing to ratify are in a single census division-the South Atlantic. Regional Differences in Legislative Innovativeness The legislatures of certain states, for whatever reasons, have traditionally been slow to adjust to, or initiate, change of any kind. Others have traditionally been early adopters of innovative legislation. The ERA is definitely a political innovation. Jean Witter believes the concept of legal equali­ty for men and women requires a considerable amount of time for society to adjust its thinking.2 In a 1980 article I reported statistical evidence that states in the forefront of adopting other pieces of new legislation were also leaders in the ERA ratification process.3 States that were laggards in the enactment of a wide variety of earlier legislative pro­grams, such as fair trade laws and those establishing legisla­tive research agencies, also tended to be nonratifiers of the ERA. The Sunbelt states have a mean innovation score of .399, whereas the score for the non-Sunbelt states is .474. The range of values for innovation scores varied from .656 for New York, the most innovative state according to the established criteria, to .298 for Mississippi, the least. Regional Differences in Attitudes On National Public Radio's National Town Meeting broadcast of June 4, 1981, Sen. James Sasser of Tennessee attributed much of the unpopularity of the ERA in the South to its being perceived as an attack on the family. Sev­eral organized religious groups oppose the ERA as leading to changes that will weaken the family and as being contrary to biblical teaching. According to these groups' interpreta­tion, the husband is supposed to be the head of the family and the wife and children subordinate to him; equality of family members is believed to be antiethical. The Mormon church and Protestant fundamentalist bodies insisting upon a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible voice the strong­est opposition to the ERA. Data on church membership confirm that states with high proportions of residents claim­ing membership in fundamentalist Protestant or Mormon groups are significantly less likely to have approved the ERA. The percentage of fundamentalist and Mormon com­bined membership varies from 75.9 in Utah to 0.5 in Mas­sachusetts and Rhode Island. The mean percentage of mem­bership in major religious bodies opposing the ERA is 21.5 for the Sunbelt, whereas that for the non-Sunbelt is 9.9. Although political conservatism often goes hand-in-hand with religious conservatism, one is not a prerequisite for the Date of Ratification of Equal Rights Amendment .. 1972 .. 1973 Ill 1974 [lilJl 1975 IB:ILrn 1977 [=:J Not ratified MILES 300 other. Many people opposing the ERA do not base their op­position on biblical teachings at all. Rather, some merely resent further government (especially federal government) intrusion into any aspect of their personal lives. Many con­sider the ERA to represent unnecessary government med­dling in areas where it has no business. The women's rights movement sprang, in part, from the civil rights movement. Self-interest could provide plenty of motivation for white males to oppose any legislation, including the ERA, that might erode their privileged position in regard to women and minorities. A distinctive aspect of traditional southern culture is the greater tendency of males to enshrine abstract womanhood, emphasizing the fragility and helplessness of women, while excluding women from meaningful participa­tion in business or public affairs. Males holding such views of women are unlikely to be strong supporters of the ERA. Society, through existing laws, customs, and regulations, has provided the "fairer sex" with special privileges and protection. Many opponents of the ERA believe that privileges and protection essential to the welfare of women will disappear if the ERA is ratified. I attempted to measure the extent to which the people of a state might adhere to the set of beliefs discussed in the preceding paragraph with a single index of political con­servatism.4 The states that were more politically conserva­tive on this index were significantly less likely to have rati­fied the ERA than their politically more liberal counter­parts. 5 The well-known conservatism of the South was borne out by the mean political conservatism ranking of 9. 7 for the South, contrasted with 30.1 for the non-South. The most conservative state, Louisiana, received a ranking of one on the conservatism scale, the next most conservative state-Mississippi-a ranking of two, and so forth. Regional Responses to Other Amendments Another interesting matter is the continuity and consis­tency of states in supporting or failing to support related is­sues over an extended period of time. To what extent, for example, did states that did not support earlier civil and human rights amendments to the Constitution also decline to ratify the ERA? The Nineteenth Amendment extended voting rights to women in 1920 and the Twenty-sixth ex­tended voting rights to eighteen-year-olds in 1971. In both these cases states that have failed to lend their support to the ERA were significantly less likely to have backed earlier suffrage amendments. Only 40 percent and 53 percent of the Sunbelt states ratified the Nineteenth and Twenty-sixth amendments. Of the non-Sunbelt states, 89 percent approved the Nineteenth and 86 percent the Twenty-sixth. The states that had earlier ratified the Nineteenth Amendment provide a good basis from which to predict the states that would ratify the ERA about fifty years later. State Equal Rights Amendments One manifestation of political conservatism is the desire to see the expansion of big government halted or preferably Number and Cumulative Percentage of Ratifying States in a Region Census division 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 States failing to ratify Middle Atlantic Number 3 Cumulative percentage (100) Pacific Number 3 Cumulative percentage (60) New England Number 3 Cumulative percentage (SO) West North Central Number 3 Cumulative percentage (43) East North Central Number 2 Cumulative percentage (40) Mountain Number 2 Cumulative percentage (25) East South Central Number 2 Cumulative percentage (SO) South Atlantic Number 3 Cumulative percentage (37) West South Central Number I Cumulative percentage (2S) 2 (100) 2 1 (83) (100) 2 I (71) (86) Missouri I 1 (60) (80) lllinois 2 I (SO) (62) Arizona, Nevada, Utah Alabama, Mississippi Florida, Georgia, North Caro­ lina, South Carolina, Virginia Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma Note: Th.~ census divisions ar~ Middle Atlantic: .New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; Pacific: Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, and Hawau; .New ~ngland: Mame, New Hampshtre, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut; West North Central: Minnesota, Iowa, ~1ssoun, North Dakota, Sout.h Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas; East North Central: Ohio, Indiana, lllinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin; Mountam: Mont.an.a,. Id~ho, Wyommg •. Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada; East South Central: Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Miss1ss1pp1 ; South Atlantic: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Flori­ da; and West South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. reversed. Political conservatives are generally state's rights advocates who want to resist federal incursion into areas they consider to be within the rightful purview of the states. For both of these reasons one might expect the more conservative states, if they have any legislation at all per­taining to equal rights for women, to favor action at the state rather than the federal level. Seventeen states have adopted ERAs to their state constitutions. Nine of these seventeen states, including two Sunbelt states (New Mexico and Texas), have ERAs with wording similar to or identical with that of the proposed federal amendment. A total of four Sunbelt states-Louisiana and Virginia in addition to New Mexico and Texas-have ERAs in their constitutions, whereas only three-California, New Mexico, and Texas­have ratified the federal ERA. The ratio of the number of Sunbelt states with state ERAs to the total number of states with state ERAs (.27) is, however, similar to the ratio of the number of Sunbelt states to the total number of states (.30). The Sunbelt thus contains no more than its fair share of states with ERAs in their state constitutions. Thus it seems questionable whether the federal ERA is opposed primarily on grounds that the state level is more appropriate than the national level for addressing the issue of women's rights. Sunbelt Congressional Opposition to ERA Thirteen members of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Sunbelt states voted against the ERA in 1971 . In only one state-Mississippi-did a majority of the congres­sional delegation vote negatively on the ERA at that time. A disproportionate share of the dissenting votes came from the Sunbelt (thirteen of twenty-four), but fewer than 40 percent of U.S. House members represent the Sunbelt. What is surprising, given the subsequent unfavorable reac­tion to the ERA by the Sunbelt state legislatures, is the overwhelming majority of representatives from Sunbelt states who voted in favor of its passage in 1971 (134 of 147). It is puzzling that states whose duly elected national representatives voted so overwhelmingly in favor of the ERA also have enough duly elected state legislators to defeat its ratification at the state level. Only eight votes against the ERA were cast in the Senate in 1972. While SO percent of the Senators opposing the ERA represented Sunbelt states, only 30 percent of the membership of the Senate represented the region. Contrasting Views: Background versus Beliefs One of the expected consequences of the ERA is more effective competition of women with men for employment vacancies in the job market. Joan Huber, Cynthia Rexroat, and Glenna Spitze recently concluded that among the most important variables in explaining public attitudes toward the ERA is the extent to which people believe its passage would make it more difficult for men to find good jobs.6 The stronger the belief that a consequence of ERA ratifica­tion would be diminished employment opportunities for men, the weaker the prospects of ERA passage. According to these observers, a booming economy with employment opportunities for all should improve prospects for passage by alleviating fears of ensuing male unemployment, whereas a stagnating economy, by exacerbating such fears, improves the chances of anti-ERA forces. This line of reasoning might lead one to believe that the Sunbelt states, given their prospering economies, would be the ones most likely to ratify the ERA, whereas the Frostbelt states, with their contracting economies, would be least likely. In fact, the real situation is just the opposite of the one postulated. The absence of economic threats to male employment in the Sunbelt obviously is insufficient to explain the lack of en­thusiasm for the ERA in the South, and the presence of stronger threats to male unemployment in the Frostbelt was no deterrent to ERA approval there. The ERA is a complex and controversial issue that defies simplistic ex­planations of why particular states have withheld their ap­proval. David Brady and Kent Tedin interviewed a group of Texas women actively opposed to the ERA to determine their socioeconomic backgrounds and political and religious beliefs. 7 Of the sample, 97 percent of the women agreed with the statement that " the federal government is taking away our basic freedoms ," and 86 percent believed that the state of morals in this country is "pretty bad and getting worse." Both of these responses reflect basic attitudes com­patible with anti-ERA sentiments. Since almost 65 percent of the group grew up in small towns or rural areas, Brady and Tedin find some evidence that these women's political activism is a product of provincialism-resentment against the increasing influence of the large city as a force in the setting of contemporary moral standards and life-styles. Even though they included only three denominations, ex­cluding Southern Baptists, in the religious fundamentalist category, Brady and Tedin discovered that fully two-thirds of their sample fell into that category. Brady and Tedin consequently concluded that "Fundamentalist religion is a principal source of the political attitudes of the anti-ERA women." The articles by Brady and Tedin and by Huber and her associates deal with ERA attitudes in two different regions of the country. One might speculate that there may be a re­gional component to these attitudes, since Brady and Tedin find the socioeconomic background of a respondent to be an important determinant of whether she opposes ERA in Texas, representing the South, whereas Huber and her as­sociates find socioeconomic background to be relatively un­important in Illinois, perhaps as representative of middle western values. The belief an individual holds about the ex­pected consequences of ERA passage are apparently more important in the heartland. People seem to oppose or sup­port the ERA for different reasons in different parts of the country. ERA supporters are not optimistic about its ratification in the less than six months remaining before its expiration.8 Only one unratified state, Virginia, has recently held the elections necessary to effect any change in the composition of its legislature. In all other states but one, some legislators formerly opposing the amendment must be persuaded to support it now. Of the remaining states, Illinois has the dis­tinction of being the only one in which a simple majority has already approved the amendment. Illinois will be counted as a state ratifying the ERA only if an unusual rule requiring a three-fifths majority on constitutional amend­ments is repealed. Even its backers agree the amendment has virtually no chance of passage in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, and Utah. Chances of ratification are judged to be only slightly better but still poor in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Okla­homa, South Carolina, and Virginia. Notes 1. According to a national Yankelovich poll for Time magazine con­ducted May 12 through May 14, 1981, 61 percent of the American people favor approval of the ERA, whereas only 30 percent oppose its passage. See "It's Rightward On," 1Yme, June 1, 1981, p. 13. 2. Jean Witter, "Extending Ratification Time for the Equal Rights Amendment: Constitutionality of Time Limitations in the Federal Amending Process," Women's Rights Law Reporter 4 (Summer 1978): 225. 3. Ernest Wohlenberg, "Correlates of Equal Rights Amendment Ratification," Social Science Quarterly 60 (1980): 678-84. 4. Peter Albin and Bruno Stein, "Determinants of Relief Policy at the Sub-Federal Level," Southern Economic Journal 37 (April 1971): 445-57. 5. Wohlenberg, "Correlates of Equal Rights Amendment Ratifica­tion." 6. Joan Huber, Cynthia Rexroat, and Glenna Spitze, "A Crucible of Opinion on Women's Status: ERA in Illinois," Social Forces 51 (December 1978): 549-65. 7. David Brady and Kent Tedin, "Ladies in Pink: Religion and Polit­ical Ideology in the Anti-ERA Movement," Social Science Quarterly 56 (March 1976): 564-75 . 8. Qay Richards, " Ratification Backers Face Uphill Fight," Bloom­ington Herald Telephone, July l , 1981, pp. 25, 28. 1982 DIRECTORY OF TEXAS MANUFACTURERS Up-to-date information on more than 14,500 manufacturers. 1 ALPHABETICAL BY NAME GEOGRAPHICAL BY CITY Complete information for each company: location mailing address phone number type of company number of employees chief officer sales & purchasing agents product listings 2 TYPE OF PRODUCT Complete plant information: location phone chief officers with phone numbers sales or purchasing agents products manufactured INDEX OF PRODUCTS with Standard Industrial Classification numbers $80/set. Texas residents add 5% sales tax. BUREAU OF BUSINESS RESEARCH• BOX 7459 •AUSTIN, TEXAS 78712 Report of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy: A Critique Vernon M. Briggs, Jr. The Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy was created by Congress ir. 1978 and charged with the responsibility "to study and evaluate ... existing laws, policies, and procedures governing the admission of immi­grants and refugees to the United States" and "to make ap­propriate legislative recommendations."1 The commission's final report, issued on March l, 198 l, contained many rec­ommendations that will directly affect employment prac­tices and the size and composition of the labor force. 2 The labor market issues are the result of the growing sig­nificance of legal, illegal, and refugee immigration to the population and labor force of the United States. During 1980, for example, more people probably entered the Unit­ed States from these combined sources than in any previous year in the nation's history. One noted demographer has observed that "immigration now appears to be almost as important as fertility insofar as U.S. population growth is concerned."3 The significance of immigration, however, concerns not only aggregate numbers, but also such factors as the status of immigrants who have entered the country illegally, the employment adjustment process of refugees, and the ability of local labor markets and institutions to accommodate all types of immigrants. Immigration Policy and Research The comparable predecessor to the Select Commission was the Immigration Commission created by Congress in 1907 and chaired by Senator William P. Dillingham. The Dillingham Commission was "one of the most ambitious social science research projects in the nation's history up to then,"4 except for the censuses. The report of the Dilling­ham Commission embraced racism and ethnocentrism but cloaked these concepts in the language of economics,5 and Vernon M. Bri~, Jr., is Professor ofIndustrial and Labor Relations, Cornell Univemty. its recommendations were embodied in the subsequent legislation that required literacy tests for immigrants in 1917, set the first annual ceilings on immigration in 1921, and established the infamous national origins quotas in 1924. The restrictive and discriminatory features of these laws formed the basis of the nation's immigration system for over forty years. The Immigration Act of 1965 purged the racial and eth­nic quotas from the immigration laws and liberalized the ceiling on the number of legal immigrants who could enter the United States each year. The immediate short-term effect was to double the annual flow of legal immigrants from the average of 192,000 persons a year (from 1924 to 1965) to 390,000 persons a year (l966 to 1977).6 Since 1978, the annual averages have risen dramatically. For in­stance, the legal immigration ceiling was set at 270,000 per­sons a year in 1980, but 808,000 persons actually entered the United States legally. Exemptions given to some im­mediate family members of U.S. citizens and a dramatic in­crease in the number of refugees seeking a political haven in the United States caused the ceiling to be exceeded. The rapid growth in the annual number of legal immi­grants and refugees was one of the justifications for the need to examine the existing immigration system. The other contributing factor was illegal immigration. The fact that an average of one million illegal immigrants are appre­hended each year indicates that the prevailing immigration system of the nation-despite its legal complexities-is being widely circumvented. Not only are the issues complex, but the topic itself is emotional. Few other subjects go deeper to the heart of the U.S. experience-a heterogeneous socie­ty in quest of a homogeneous identity. No matter what the commission found or recommended, controversy could be expected. The Select Commission was composed of sixteen people: four people selected by President Jimmy Carter from the general public, four members from the Senate, four mem­bers from the House of Representatives, and four cabinet members whose departments are directly concerned with immigration (the Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of State). In conducting its deliberations, the commission had access to the work of its own staff and the staffs of several congressional committees, the advice of dozens of consultants, and the opinions of hundreds of witnesses who testified at twelve regional public hearings. The commission also funded a limited amount of work, although the specific findings of these funded studies are not contained in the commission's report . Apparently , the relatively short time available for the completion of its study precluded the commission from ini­tiating any ambitious research projects that might have added to the meager store of currently available knowledge about immigration. The contention that there is an absence of sufficient knowledge to support the extensive recom­mendations of the commission, however, is unfair. Data are also either nonexistent or grossly inadequate about such topics as youth unemployment in local labor markets, health, employment discrimination, mental health, crime, narcotics use, environmental degradation, or available ener­gy supplies; yet the lack of good data has in no way retard­ed the initiation of significant policy interventions in these areas. Legal Immigration The overriding theme of the report is that the United States should continue to accept large numbers of immi­grants but that the nation must confront " the reality of limitations." More specifically, the commission observed that "If it is a truism to say that the United States is a na­tion of immigrants, it is also a truism that it is one no lon­ger, nor can it become a land of unlimited immigration ... . The United States of America-no matter how powerful and idealistic-cannot by itself solve the problems of world migration. This nation must continue to have some limits on immigration." The commission concluded that the na­tion needs to adopt "a cautious approach" in its immigra­tion policy and recommended that the annual level of legal immigrants increase modestly (from 270,000 to 350,000 persons), that a temporary special effort be made to clear up the existing backlog of visa requests caused primarily by efforts to reunify families (add an additional 100,000 visas each year for five years without regard to quotas for indi­vidual countries), and that a more equitable system more reflective of "our interests as a nation" be set up. The new system would separate immigrants into two categories. One group would be immigrants who were being reunited with family members already in the country ; the other would be immigrants with no relations in the United States. Currently, the two groups are mixed together, a process that has caused confusion and hardship. Prevailing legislation, however, stresses that the two main goals of immigration policy are to reunify families and to admit per­sons with needed skills. The commission has noted that the only way to assure that both of these goals are achieved is to establish two separate immigration channels. Spouses, minor children, parents of adult citizens, and the unmarried sons, daughters, and grandparents of adult U.S. citizens (a slightly expanded list from that which currently exists) would be admitted without numerical restrictions. All other relatives would have to compete for the numerically limited slots that would be available annually. The immigrants without relations in this country would be admitted in a new immigration category called independent immigrants. For a variety of reasons, immigrants without family ties in this country have had a difficult time entering the nation legally since 1978. The present system is, therefore, highly nepotistic, and the immigration system has not been able to meet legitimate labor shortages. The current immigration system pays scant attention to labor market effects. Except for Israel, other countries that accept legal immigrants base their admission systems largely on labor force needs. The fact that so few U.S. entry deci­sions are based on labor market considerations does not mean that there are not significant labor market results from these entries. The number of legal immigrants and refugees is large and, even more importantly, they tend to settle in only a relatively small number of states; 70 percent of all legal immigrants settle in California, New York, Flor­ida, New Jersey, Illinois, or Texas. Moreover, only a few urban areas in these states are the ultimate destinations of the new settlers. The fact that legal immigration is so highly concentrated may, in part, explain why the issue of immi­gration reform is so low on the national agenda of pressing social issues. Unfortunately, the commission only addressed the issue of federal assistance to local areas in its discussion of refugees, but the same needs are created by legal immi­grants and illegal immigrants. Ifimmigration policy is essen­tially a responsibility of the federal government, it is unfair to lay the burden of accommodating federal policies on selected local communities without providing financial as­sistance to ease the effect on local human services. Refugees The number of refugees admitted to the United States in both fiscal years 1980 and 1981 exceeded 215 ,000. The Refugee Act of 1980, which set an annual refugee quota of 50,000 persons, had hardly gone into effect before it was confronted by the 125,000 refugees expelled from Cuba in mid-I 9 8 0. This event may be only an exam pie of a pro bl em that will reoccur regularly with other countries in the future .7 The report accepts the definition of refugee set forth in the Refugee Act of 1980: anyone who is outside his or her homeland and would face political persecution upon return. No longer are only persons fleeing from communism or the situation in the Middle East considered to be refugees. The repo~ r~commends that the limited number of refugee visas be distnbuted on geographical considerations and refugee characteristics so that opportunities for immigration will be well distributed. The report does not come to grips with the problem of mass requests for asylum. Aside from calling for the establishment of contingency plans to assist in proces­sing refugees, the report says little about what policy ad­justments are needed. The president will simply have to grope with future situations as they unravel. The report does say that refugees should be clustered in selected communities rather than dispersed nationally. While the sociology behind such a policy may be impec­cable, the economic prospects for the communities that mission also rejected the speculative literature that con­tends that illegal immigrants somehow take jobs that would otherwise not exist or not be filled in their absence. 11 Aware that shifts in supply curves have both employment and wage effects, the commission also argued that illegal immigrants tend to depress or to moderate wage rates from that which would exist in their absence.12 Furthermore, the commission argued that illegal imlnigrants are increasingly The overriding theme of the commission's report is that the United States should continue to accept large numbers of immigrants but must confront 'the reality of limitations.' become the clusters are not good. Federal aid to help meet the human service demands of the refugees was recom­mended. Implicit in these support programs is the fact that local labor markets will ultimately bear the long-run respon­sibility of adjusting to refugee employment, housing, and income needs. It is to be hoped that it will not take riots similar to those that occurred in the black ghettos of Miami in mid-1980 to highlight the fact that much more assistance is needed to urban areas confronted with an influx in refu­gees than mere aid to the refugees. The report, however, is silent on this crucial linkage problem. Illegal Immigration Increasingly the issues of refugees and illegal imlnigra­tion are becoming intertwined.8 Almost all discussions of il­legal immigration, however, bog down in the intellectual quagmire of trying to estimate the number of people in­volved, but the illegality of this entry process assures that the actual size and composition of the population will never be known.9 Rather than make its own estimate, the com­mission accepted the Bureau of the Census estimate, which placed the stock of illegal immigrants within a range of be­tween 3 .5 million and 6 million persons. 10 These census figures, however, were derived from a staff review of other studies that merely attempted to employ various estimating methods. All of the cited studies were based on data for various years in the early to mid-l 970s; none were for 1981. The quoted range is, therefore, merely the average of noncomparable approximations from different studies, some of which were of dubious statistical validity; but these lilnitations will not be known to most people who will read the report. The quoted range will probably be widely cited as a maximum when it is, if anything, a minimum of the size of the illegal immigration problem as of 1981. The commission accepted the thesis that illegal immi­grants hold jobs that would often otherwise be held by citi­zens but not necessarily that the displacement rate is one to one-only that it is substantially more than zero. The com-using social services and that these demands will probably escalate in the future. Thus, while there may be private benefits from employing illegal immigrants, there are also public costs. The report is strangely mute on the use of il­legal immigrants as strikebreakers and as an antiunion force. The commission, however, concluded that "illegality breeds illegality" and that illegal immigrants in local labor markets make the enforcement of prevailing laws to safeguard employment standards difficult. Thus, the commission feared that the nation would rapidly accumulate a subclass of persons with no rights, a process that can only have a pernicious effect on U.S. society. The commission stated that "to take no action will re­sult in a worsening of the problems" and called for "the in­itiation of strong, new efforts" to curtail illegal immigra­tion. Several of its key recommendations involved labor market policies; in particular, it recommended civil penal­ties (but gave no specifics) for employers who hire illegal immigrants. Such a policy, of course, would entail some form of acceptable employee identification. The commis­sion recommended a system that would require everyone who seeks a job to establish eligibility to work. Such a uni­versal system would minimize the fears of some ethnic groups that they might be discriminated against when they seek jobs. Although the commission voted fourteen to two in favor of imposing employer sanctions, it voted only eight to seven (with one absent) to couple the sanctions with some form of secure employee identification. The small majority in favor of a universal identification system was "unable to reach a consensus as to the specific type of identification that should be required for verification." Apparently, a pro­posal to reissue social security cards that could not be counterfeited had the strongest support but not enough to be actually proposed. Commissioner Ray Marshall, in an appendix to the report, proposed a novel identification system that would involve a postemployment rather than a preemployment identification check. His proposal would neither involve identification cards nor require employers to decide for themselves about the eligibility of a job applicant. Rather, workers entering the labor force or changing jobs would be required to acquire a work authorization number that would be on file at a federal data bank. The number would be issued only after the individual offered some proof that he or she was a citizen or resident alien. Employers would call a toll free data bank after they had hired an individual to check citizenship eligibility and would receive a number that would be enough to comply with the employer sanction provisions. The commission strongly endorsed a recommendation for greater enforcement of existing labor standards legisla­tion. If existing wage, hour, safety, antidiscrimination, and farm contractor laws were enforced more adequately, some of the existing attractiveness of hiring illegal immigrants, who are less likely to complain about violations, would be mitigated, the commission reasoned. Greater enforcement, of course, would require more funding for the appropriate agencies than it is currently popular to advocate. Even if enforcement were stepped up, only the minimum standards of existing laws could be enforced. Since all available research indicates that most illegal immigrants are not em­ployed in substandard working conditions, 13 greater en­forcement of labor standards would not be sufficient to remedy the problem of illegal immigration. Now almost all apprehended illegal immigrants are given a voluntary departure back to their homelands, often at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer. The commission concluded, however, that any real effort to impose stiffer penalties would most likely prove to be both unenforceable and more costly than existing practices; yet, as matters stand, violating the nation's immigration statutes incurs virtually no penalty. This circumstance makes no sense. How can any law be taken seriously if no sanctions are imposed when its terms are violated? The commission supported increased funding for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and noted that on any eight-hour shift only 450 border patrol officers are on duty along all of the borders of the nation. The com­mission also recommended that more attention be given to enforcement away from the border than is currently the practice. These recommendations were among twenty-four that would require additional appropriations from Con­gress. In the present political context, the Reagan adminis­tration would have not only to exempt the INS from its budget reductions but also to make it an exception that is entitled to substantially higher real appropriations. The commission did conclude that no new foreign worker program should be introduced to accommodate present or would-be illegal aliens because of the adverse ef­fects of previous endeavors in the United States and Eu­rope.14 Nonetheless, the Reagan administration has pro­posed a small foreign worker program of 50,000 persons and a liberalization of some of the procedures that govern the existing temporary worker programs. 15 The commission recommended some type of forgiveness for the illegal immigrants already in the country as the only way to avoid the creation of a subclass and to avoid the ex­ pense of trying to force so many people to leave the coun­try. An illegal immigrant would have to have been in the United States for some time before an effective date set a few years before the enactment of the authorization. The effective date could not be contemporaneous with the de­bate and enactment of the other immigration reforms so that there would be no wholesale invasion of persons seeking to qualify before the deadline. The goal of the com­mission's reforms is to reduce the size of the illegal immi­grant population and its vulnerability to exploitation. For­giveness, therefore, is an essential part of this overall strate­gy. Even with forgiveness, a residual group of people who will not qualify (those who cannot prove they were here before the forgiveness date) and those who do not apply even though they are eligible (because of lack of informa­tion or fear) will exist. The report merely states that, as they are apprehended, people in these groups should be subject to the existing procedures for returning them to their homelands but calls for no stiffer penalties on appre­hended persons or reductions in the use of the voluntary departure system. Apparently, the commission believed that if the other proposals are all implemented the attrac­tiveness of further illegal immigr~tion will be lessened. This belief, of course, is far from certain. Concluding Observations The report of the Select Commission succinctly de­scribes the fact that the nation's current immigration sys­tem is in total disarray. The system is incapable of accom­plishing its stated goals; unless changes are made, the situa­tion can only worsen. The thrust of the report pertains to the effects of not reforming the existing immigration system. Its tenor and the bulk of its findings are addressed at who is harmed by the maintenance of the status quo. Accordingly, its key recommendations are mainly of a law enforcement nature. The report does not give adequate attention to the causes, primarily economic, of illegal immigration. As a re­sult, the barriers to the implementation of its recommenda­tions are not clear. If corresponding attention had been given to who benefits from leaving matters as they are and how matters have been allowed to reach the present sad state of affairs, the complexity of the quest for immigra· tion reform would have been more clearly revealed. The major deficiency in the report is its almost total neglect of the need to address the international factors that push people into the immigrant stream. Large numbers of people migrate only if both push and pull factors are work· ing simultaneously. Aside from issuing a few homilies about the importance of international cooperation, the commis­ sion mainly addressed the working of the pull factors. No mention is made of the need for tariff and quota reductions on imports from Mexico and Caribbean countries; the need for enhanced development aid, technical assistance, and family planning information for developing nations in our hemisphere; the role of American private investment abroad in introducing and expanding labor-saving technologies in these countries; and human rights protections and support for democratic principles as guides to government opera­tions by many of these nations. Unless the push factors are reduced, a sizable reduction in the pressures that have generated current immigration problems cannot be ex­pected. It is distressing that the commission chose not to in­clude these concerns in its perspective and its recommenda­tions. Over the long run the push factors may be dominant. The commission also should have discussed the contro­versial but, nevertheless, imperative topic of how public policy should safeguard illegal immigrants in this country. As matters stand, these people are the prey of the most ex­ploitative elements of American society. State legislatures and the federal government increasingly deny coverage of social legislation to needy families of illegal immigrants. The abusive treatment of illegal aliens has already raised human rights issues both inside and outside the nation. 16 If the nation expects to continue to reap benefits from illegal immigration, it must be willing to assume the costs as well. The issue of immigration reform is one of the major labor force policy issues of the 1980s. The Select Commis­sion's report is only the opening salvo of what promises to be a lengthy and heated national debate over the appro­priate public policy for the nation. Notes 1. Amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act (1978), Pub. L. 95412. 2. Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy, U.S. Immigration Policy and the National Interest (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1981). 3. Leon F. Bouvier, The Impact ofImmigra­ tion on the Size of the U.S. Population (Washington, D.C.: Population Reference Bureau, 1981), p. 1. 4. David S. North and Allen LeBel, Man­power and Immigration Policies and the United Statea, Special Report no. 20 (Wash· ington, D.C.: National Commission for Manpower Policy, 1978), p. 26. 5. Oscar Handlin, Race and Nationality in American Life (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1968), chap. 5. 6. David S. North and William G. Weissert, Use of 'Soft' Data for Analysis," The American Behavioral Scientist, January 1976, pp. 351-62. 10. Jacob S. Siegal, Jeffrey S. Passel, and J. Gregory Robinson, "Preliminary Review of Existing Studies of the Number of Illegal Residents in the United States," mimeographed report by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, January 1980. 11. See Wayne Cornelius, Mexican Migrations to the United States: Causes, Consequences and U.S. Responses (Cambridge, Mass.: Cen­ter for International Studies, 1978) and Michael J. Piore, Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor and Industrial Societies (Cambridge: Cam­bridge University Press, 1979). 12. See Walter Fogel, Mexican fllegal Alien Workers in the United States (Los Angeles: Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California at Los Angeles, 1978), chaps. 5-7. 13. David S. North and Marion F. Houstoun, The Characteristics and Role offllegal Aliens in the U.S. Labor Market: An Exploratory Study (Washington, D.C.: Linton & Company, 1976); see also Maurice D. Van Arsdol, Jr., Joan Moore, David Heer, and Susan P. Haynie, Non-Apprehended and Apprehended Undocumented Residents in the Los Angeles Labor Market, final report submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor under Research Contract no. 20-06-77-16 (1979). 14. See Ernesto Galarza, Merchants ofLabor: The Mexican Bracero Story (Charlotte, N.C.: McNally & Loftin Publishers, 1964); Philip Martin and Mark Miller, "Guestworker Programs: Lessons from Europe," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, April 1980, pp. 315-30; Ray Rist, "Migration and Marginality: Guestworkers in Germany and France," Daedalus, Spring 1979, pp. 95-108. 15. U.S. Department of Justice, "U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy," mimeographed, Washington, D.C., July 30, 1981, p. 5; this document represents the proposals of the Reagan administration to Congress for immigration law reform . 16. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, The Tarnished Door: Civil Rights Issues in Immigration (Washington, D.C.: Government Print­ing Office, 1980). TEXAS INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION Immigrants and the American Labor Force, Monograph no. 31 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, 1974), p. 5; data for We've changed our format to a newsletter. Texas Industrial the years after this monograph was pub­ Expansion brings you up-to-the-minute information on new lished came from U.S. Immigration Policy and expanding plants in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan and the National Interest. areas. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1980) and John K. Galbraith, The 7. See Global 2000 Report to the President If your company is sales or marketing oriented, the news­Nature of Masi Poverty (Cambridge: Har­ letter will have the information you need-when you need it. vard University Press, 1979), chap. 8. Twelve issues a year. $20. 8. Michael Teitelbaum, "Right versus Right: Immigration and Refugee Policy in the United States," Foreign Affairs, Fall 1980, Bureau of Business Research pp. 21-59. P.O. Box 7459 Austin, Texas 78712 9. Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., "IDegal Immigra­tion and the American Labor Force: The An Evaluation of President Reagan's Proposed Immigration Policy Lewis E. Hill Charles E. Butler On July 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan announced his proposals to change U.S. immigration policy. President Reagan proposed granting legal residency to qualifying illegal aliens, providing for a limited and controlled increase in legal immigration from Mexico (including a guest-worker program), strengthening the enforcement of immigration and labor laws, and developing a plan for the economic development of the Western Hemisphere.1 While most Texans would benefit from increased legal immigration from Mexico, proposed legal sanctions against employers of illegal aliens would not be in the best interests of the people of Texas. Background Before 1900, Mexican nationals came and went, and some stayed in the United States, but there was little con­cern about whether they were in the country legally or il­legally. As a result of many factors, Mexican immigration accelerated after 1900. The chief pull factors were the in­dustrial expansion in the United States and the immigra­tion laws that limited the supply of Oriental labor. The chief push factors were the Mexican Revolution of 1910­1920 and the unsettled political and economic situation it caused. The First World War caused a U.S. labor shortage that attracted a much larger volume of immigration from Mexico; many of the immigrants came as contract laborers in what is sometimes called the first bracero program. During the prosperous 1920s, Mexican nationals con­tinued to enter the United States in large numbers, but stricter immigration laws were enacted in 1921 and 1924. Consequently, increasing proportions of the Mexican im­migrants were illegal aliens. The Great Depression caused much concern about illegal aliens taking jobs from U.S. citizens and led to extensive deportations in what was called Operation Wetback. The Second World War moti- Lewis E. Hill is Professor of Economics and Charles E. Buder is Associate Professor ofEconomics, Texas Tech University. vated the establishment in 1942 of a new bracero program, which brought contract laborers into this country and created the incentive for great increases in both legal and illegal immigration from Mexico. The bracero program was terminated in 1964 and quantitative limits were placed on immigration from the Western Hemisphere for the first time in 1965, but the volume of illegal immigration in­creased.2 With the return of hard times during the 1970s, new solutions to the problems posed by the illegal aliens were demanded. The issue concerning the evaluation of President Rea­gan's proposal for citizens of Texas is whether immigra­tion from Mexico is economically and culturally beneficial to Texas. The economic picture is mixed, but on balance more Texans appear to have benefited than to have been hurt by a reasonable level of immigration from Mexico. Economic theory suggests that immigration from Mexico would benefit those Texans who provide inputs into the productive process that are complementary to the inputs provided by the Mexican immigrants. Those Texans who provide inputs that are competitive with the inputs pro­vided by Mexican immigrants will be hurt, especially if the rate of unemployment is high. If, for example, the immigration consisted entirely of unskilled agricultural labor, beneficiaries would include farmers, land owners, and skilled agricultural laborers, whose incomes would increase, and consumers of agricul­tural products, whose costs would decrease. Of course, the immigrants would also benefit. The losers would be the Texans who earn their living through unskilled agricultural labor. If the immigrants were to return to Mexico during the off season (as might occur under a guest-worker pro­gram), the temporary immigrants from Mexico would meet the peak demand for agricultural labor. If permanent em· ployment could be found for the Texans who would have otherwise worked the harvest, all parties would benefit. To the extent that Mexican immigration consists of skilled laborers, the gainers would include those Texans who contribute capital, land and natural resources and un­ skilled labor to the productive process, as well 'as those Texans who consume output. The losers would be the skilled laborers competing with skilled immigrants for jobs. The magnitude of all of these economic consequences would depend upon the number of immigrants in relation to the number of Texans affected by the immigration.3 The culture of Texas is strengthened and enriched by the ethnic diversity of its residents. Immigrants from Mexi­co to Texas enrich our culture by revitalizing the Mexican­American and Chicano traditions, which have made avail­able for all Texans many aspects of Mexican culture, includ­ing art, music, and food. Moreover, Texans of Mexican ancestry also make cultural contributions that are not of an ethnic nature. The illegality of their residence limits the full participation of many Mexican immigrants in the cultural life of Texas, and President Reagan's proposal would be a step toward removing this limitation. Immigration Policy: Description and Evaluation The immigration policy that President Reagan has pro­posed would offer legal status as permanent residents to illegal aliens who have been in the United States since January l, 1980, and who are not excludable for legal reasons. According to the president's proposal, eligible illegal aliens could apply for temporary legal residency, which could be renewed every three years. Residents in this status would be permitted to work and required to pay taxes but would not be eligible for welfare payments, feder­ally assisted housing, food stamps, or unemployment in­surance. They would not be permitted to bring spouses or minor children into the country, but they could visit their home countries without jeopardizing their legal statuses or their rights to reenter the United States. After ten years, a temporary resident could apply for permanent legal residency, provided he or she was not legally excludable. Subsequently, a permanent resident could achieve U.S. citizenship by complying with the relevant procedures specified in existing laws. These requirements are more stringent that those applied to seaborne refugees from Cuba and Haiti, who could apply for temporary residency if they have been in this nation since January 1, 1981 (instead of 1980) and could qualify for permanent residency after five years (rather than ten years). These provisions to grant legal status to illegal aliens would have a limited effect on the economy of Texas be­cause they would merely legalize an actual situation. Mil­lions of illegal aliens have lived and worked in the United States for some time; the current economic situation re­flects their presence here. The greatest economic effect occurred at the time of their illegal entry into this country and shortly thereafter. To round these people up and de­port them, as was done during the 1930s, would not only disrupt the Texas economy, but it would also impose great human suffering. Moreover, the legalization of residency would benefit both the illegal aliens and the citizens of Texas. Clearly, the illegal aliens would gain security and permanence from achieving legal status. No longer would they be afraid to complain about substandard wages or working conditions; no longer could unscrupulous em­ployers exploit their fear of deportation to keep them in virtual bondage. The aliens would be in a stronger position to achieve their full potential for contributing to the econo­my and to the culture of the United States in general and Texas in particular. The citizens of Texas would benefit because they would be relieved from the necessity of competing with people who could be blackmailed into accepting substandard wages and working conditions with­out protest. For these reasons, implementation of the president's proposals to grant legal residency to illegal aliens should prove beneficial, but there appears to be no justifi­able reason to discriminate against illegal aliens from Mexi­co over refugees from Cuba and Haiti. Other provisions of President Reagan's proposal would provide for the legal entry into the United States of a limited number of Mexican nationals. One provision would admit up to 50,000 workers annually for nine to twelve months. Workers would be free to change jobs, and normal labor laws would apply to them. They would be required to pay taxes but would not be eligible for welfare, food stamps, or unemployment compensations. Neither could they bring spouses and children with them. Another part of the president's proposal would increase the annual ceilinf for legal immigration from Mexico from 20,000 to 40,000. Also the proposal would streamline procedures for admit­ting immigrants with needed skills, but no family ties, into the United States. Increased legal immigration of Mexican nationals into the United States could be beneficial both to the immi­grants and to the citizens of Texas. Of course, the immigra­tion would be beneficial to the incoming Mexican nationals or they would not choose to enter the United States. In­creased legal immigration from Mexico would also raise the level of productivity of our economy and enrich our cul­ture, but the numbers proposed are mere tokenism. A total of 50,000 braceros does not even begin to meet the demand for this type of labor in the United States; neither would this volume of immigration relieve the pressure for out­migration from Mexico. A ceiling of 40,000 on the perma­nent immigration from a friendly neighboring country of 70,000,000 seems ridiculously small. History has demon­strated that unpopular laws tend to be unenforceable. Im­migration laws will be impossible to enforce unless they provide for the volume of immigration that is desired by the majority of citizens on both sides of the border. Still other provisions of the president's program would call for stricter enforcement of immigration laws and other related legislation. President Reagan has recommended legislation that would for the first time impose legal sanc­tions against employers who knowingly employ illegal aliens. Employers of four or more employees who hire illegal aliens would be subject to civil fines of from $500 to $1,000 for each offense. Additionally, the Department of Justice would be authorized to seek injunctions against habitual offenders. The law would provide a good faith defense for employers who request from the prospective employee and examine either documentation to be issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service or any two of the following: birth certificate, driver's license, social security card, and selective service registration certificate. The president would also beef up the border patrol and greatly strengthen the enforcement of existing immigration laws. This proposal would involve additional personnel, more equipment, and improved procedures. In another approach to the problem of illegal aliens, the Reagan administration would intensify the enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act in order to eliminate the substandard wages and working conditions that make the employment of illegal aliens profitable for unscrupulous employers. Elimination of illegally low wages should reduce the incen­tive for exploiting illegal aliens and, therefore, reduce the demand for the labor of these people. Finally, President Reagan proposes to enter into negotiations with the govern­ment of Mexico concerning the organized smuggling of illegal aliens into the United States and the illegal entry of nationals from other countries through Mexican territory. By enlisting the assistance of the Mexican government, the U.S. government would hope to reduce these violations of the immigration laws. Sanctions against employers, however, are dangerous not only because they might threaten employers, but also because they might cause employment discrimination against U.S. citizens with Spanish surnames. These penalties would tend to put the burden of proof on the prospective employee to demonstrate that he is not an illegal alien. Since suspicion of illegal status would center on persons with Spanish surnames, employers would have an incentive to discriminate against those with Spanish surnames. The other parts of the president's law enforcement program seem to be logically justified and legally valid, but their effectiveness remains doubtful. Probably nothing short of unacceptable police-state methods can stop the influx of illegal aliens from Mexico. Even if the president's proposal were fully implemented in the immediate future, illegal immigration would almost certainly continue. Within a decade the problem of a large illegal population in the border states will probably have returned. At that time, some future administration may find it necessary to formu­late a new set of proposals to deal with illegal immigrants. A final aspect of the president's immigration and refugee proposal is a plan for the economic development of the Western Hemisphere. Secretary of State Alexander Haig has already begun to discuss such a plan with the foreign ministers of Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela. The ultimate success of the proposed immigration policy may very well depend upon the effectiveness of the hemispheric develop­ment plan. Illegal aliens have been generally driven into the United States by poverty and the lack of opportunity re­sulting from the low level of economic development in Mexico. If an economic development program were to improve the Mexican economy, then motivation for illegal immigration could be reduced. The benefits of complemen­tarity are not limited to the inputs into the productive process; they extend to trade among nations with different resources and different opportunity costs. A hemispheric economic development plan, therefore, might not only relieve the pressure for illegal immigration, but also raise the level of living in all participating nations, including the United States. President Reagan's proposal represents an affirmative response to the chronic problems of illegal immigration and may become a significant step toward improved relations between the United States and Mexico. The time is overdue for both nations to settle their differences and reinforce the bond of common interests. A new policy on immigration could begin this process; a new plan for the economic development of the Western Hemisphere could continue it. Notes 1. Information concerning President Reagan's proposed immigration policy has been drawn from "U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy," Department of Justice press release, July 30, 1981, and "Testimony of William French Smith before the Senate Subcommittee on Im­migration, Refugees, and International Law," July 30, 1981. 2. For a summary treatment of the history of immigration to the United States and U.S. immigration policy, see Department of Jus­tice, -Immigration and Naturalization Service, Our Immigration, A Brief Account ofImmigration to the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1980). 3. For good technical treatment of the theoretical issues involved, see the symposium papers on immigration in an era of unsanctioned migration in the April 1980 issue of Industrial and Labor Relations Review; especially relevant is George E. Johnson's article, "The Labor Market Effects oflmmigration." 4. The proposal would also increase the ceiling on Canadian im­migration from 20,000 to 40,000. Texas Railroads A Record of Construction and Abandonment Charles P. Zlatkovich Texas Railroads offers a complete record of the construction and partial abandonment of the railroad system of the state of Texas from 185 3 through 1980. Along with previously unpub­lished material from the records of the Texas Railroad Commission, the book offers maps of the railroad system over time, illustrations, photographs, and brief histories of the major railroad lines operating in Texas. Hardcover $10 Paperback $7 .......................... Bureau of Business Research P.O. Box 7459 • Austin, Texas 78712 Jail overcrowding is a serious problem in an increasing number of local jurisdictions within the United States. If a study of the Travis County Jail is any indication, however, unnecessary bookings could be reduced and jail overcrowd­ing could be relieved . Alternative treatment of those booked for driving while intoxicated and other drinking­related charges and of check-writing offenses would reduce bookings in Travis County by about 40 percent. About 14 percent of U.S. local governmental budgets are now used for correctional programs, with most of this amount being spent on jails. Excluding stays of less than forty-eight hours, between three million and five million persons spend time in local jails each year in this country, more than ten times the number of inmates handled by all state and federal prisons annually. 1 The states with the largest numbers of local jails are Texas (318), Georgia (239), and Florida (164). On a regional basis, the South has the largest number of inmates in local jails and the West has the second largest number.2 Traditionally, jail overcrowding has been handled by either building larger jails or increasing the size of present jails. New approaches must be found, however, to relieve local jurisdictions of the financial pressures generated by these traditional approaches. Jail Overcrowding Urban jails, which house over half of this country's inmates, are chronically and severely overcrowded, while rural jails tend to be underutilized. Federal judges display an increasing willingness to stop overcrowding in state prisons by reducing prison populations and, thus, increasing local jail populations. Consequently, many convicted felons Marianne Hopper is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, St. Edward's University. Oiff Roberson is Assistant Profes­sor of Criminal Justice, St. Edward's University. Support for this research was provided by the American Justice Institute. Jail Overcrowding The Search for Solutions Marianne Hopper Cliff Roberson are now in county and city jails awaiting transfers to state facilities. Roughly half of the states are under court order to ease prison overcrowding or face lawsuits asserting that such crowded conditions are unconstitutional. Overcrowd­ing in prisons is especially severe in the South. In the 1960s, the federal courts began to move away from the traditional hands-off position regarding state cor­rectional facilities. In Holt v. Sarver the U.S. Supreme Court first held that overcrowded prison conditions violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punish­ment. The most far-reaching action to date was taken in 1976 by U.S. District Court Judge Frank Johnson in James v. Wallace. Judge Johnson ordered a reduction of Alabama's inmate population from 4,000 to 2,307. Federal courts in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana have found prison conditions to be so overcrowded that they constitute a cruel and unusual punishment of the inmates. Because of such federal limits to state prison capacity, newly convicted persons must remain in county jails longer. The net results of these federal orders can quickly shift the problem of overcrowding from state prisons to local jails. Since overcrowding is a constitutional issue, federal courts are likely to intervene into the functioning of local jails. Such court action can precipitate a fiscal crisis as the local community struggles to meet the mandated standards in the local jail. The Texas Situation: Ruiz v. Estelle The problem of jail overcrowding is particularly crucial in Texas because of the pending federal case of Ruiz v. Estelle. In December 1980 U.S. District Court Judge William Wayne Justice declared the Texas Department of Corrections to be unconstitutionally cruel in many aspects of its state prison system, particularly in regard to gross overcrowding. As a result of the Ruiz case, a population ceiling will probably be placed on the state prison system. No prisoners will be transferred into the state prison until the overall prison population has been reduced to the mandated level. This action will immediately affect local jails in Texas. Cur­rently overcrowded jails will reach a crisis, and many jails that are not overcrowded will soon be. The Travis County Study The Travis County Jail is typical of urban county jails in that it is seriously overcrowded and deficient in many other respects. In 1974, U.S. District Court Judge Jack Roberts found numerous violations of state and federal law in the operation and facilities of the jail and ordered the county to correct them in Musgrove v. Frank. The financial burden for such remedies falls on the citizens of the coun­ ty, although the planning and coordination is carried out by the Travis County Commissioners Court. Unfortu­ nately, many of the problems cited in the original lawsuit remain uncorrected, and more than twenty-five major lawsuits concerning the county jail are currently pending in federal district court. In June 1980 Travis County Judge Mike Renfro recom­mended to the commissioners court that a jail overcrowding task force, consisting of judges, attorneys, criminal justice officials, agency personnel, and private citizens, be estab­lished. The American Justice Institute gave the task force a federal grant to track individuals through the system from booking through final disposition in order to study all inputs to, and outputs from, the system. A representative sample of about one thousand individuals was selected from the population of all eight thousand individuals booked into the Travis County Jail in 1979. 3 The year 1979 was selected so that the majority of cases would have reached final disposition. While more recent information would be desirable, the sharp rise in uncompleted cases makes data on individuals booked in 1980 less useful. Statutes, regula­tions, policies, and jail facilities had not changed significant­ly since 1979. Characteristics of Those Booked Males, members of minority groups, and young people were overrepresented among the individuals booked into Travis County Jail in 1979. The population of Travis County was approximately 11 percent black in 1979, but blacks constituted 22.6 percent of the persons booked into the jail in that year. Whites constituted 53.3 percent of the bookings, while about 70 percent of the county's popula­tion was white; Hispanics constituted about 21 percent of the county's population and 20.6 percent of the bookings. While slightly less than SO percent of the Travis County population was male in 1979, 85 .6 percent of those booked into the county jail were male. Only 14.4 percent of those booked were female, a figure that is not unusual for local jails. Females constituted 17.3 percent of the bookings in Jackson County, Missouri, and 1 S .2 percent in Orange County, Florida, two other county jails being studied by the American Justice Institute. People twenty to twenty-four years old made up only about one-seventh of the general population, but they con­stituted 30.4 percent of the Travis County Jail bookings in 1979. Types of Charges The highest percentage (19.3 percent) and number (187) of bookings was for driving while intoxicated (see table 1 ). In addition, 7.9 percent were booked on other drunk· related charges. The second highest percentage of bookings (13 percent) was for check offenses (excluding forgery). By comparison, Orange County DWis constituted only 10 per­cent of the bookings and check offenses constituted less than 1 percent. In Jackson County DWis were not booked into the county jail and check offenses constituted only 3.6 percent of all bookings. Since the percentages of people booked on these three charges in Travis County in 1979 were so much greater than the percentages in the other two counties, any plan to decrease jail overcrowding should ex­amine the need to use the county jail for such individuals. Of those booked into the Travis County Jail in 1979, 69.2 percent (664 persons) were originally booked on mis· Table 1 Primary Charge at Booking in Travis County Jail, 1979 Charge Number Percentage Driving while intoxicated 187 19.3 Check offenses 126 13.0 Theft 94 9.7 Drunk related 76 7.9 Drug related 65 6.7 Burglary 58 6.0 Assault 31 3.2 Traffic 30 3.1 Weapons 24 2.S Motor vehicle 23 2.4 Contempt 23 2.4 Criminal mischief 17 1.8 Robbery 16 1.7 Forgery IS 1.S Murder 13 1.3 Sex offenses 9 0.9 Prostitution 8 0 .8 Illegal alien 7 0.7 Resisting arrest 7 0.7 Violation of probation 7 0.7 Auto theft s o.s Fugitive s o.s Other 67 6.9 Application to revoke probation Violation of probation 17 1.8 Burglary 11 1.1 Theft 8 0.8 Drug related 6 0.6 Driving while intoxicated 1 0.1 Forgery 1 0.1 Fugitive 1 0.1 Murder 1 0.1 Motor vehicle 1 0.1 Other s o.s Out of range• 6 0.6 Total 971 100.0 •cases with keypunching errors. Source: The a~thors derived_ the data from a sample of 971 individ· uals booked into the TraV1s County Jail in 1979. demeanor charges. (In Orange County, 66.3 percent of the bookings were for misdemeanor charges.) Most people booked into the Travis County Jail in 1979 were apparently arrested for minor, nonviolent offenses. About 45 percent of those booked into Travis County Jail in 1979 were released on the same day (see table 2). By the end of the second day 64.9 percent had been released, and by the third day 70.4 percent had been released. If some method could be found to avoid booking into jail those who will stay less than three days, crowding would be reduced. The data indicated that blacks are far more likely to be held longer than twenty-four hours than whites are. Of the whites 63.4 percent were held less than twenty-four hours, whereas only 44.4 percent of the blacks were held less than a day (see table 3). This statistically significant difference remained no matter how severe the charge. Because of the information-keeping practices of Travis County, data on whether individuals had private or court­appointed attorneys could only be gathered for those charged with felonies, and data were available for only 93 out of a possible 296 felony cases. Of this small sample, 48.4 percent were represented by court-appointed attor­neys (see table 4). Of those with court-appointed attorneys, 82.2 percent remained in jail over twenty-four hours, while only 38.3 percent of those with private attorneys remained in jail more than a day. In fact, most people with court­appointed attorneys were not released until after three weeks of incarceration. The first contact between a person detained before trial and the court-appointed attorney usually occurred ten to twenty-one days after booking. The 1974 order in Musgrove v. Frank had indicated that the first contact should occur within seventy-two hours of booking. If time from booking to contact with the court- Table 2 Time from Booking to Release at Travis County Jail, 1979 Cumulative Time Number Percentage percentage Released same day 429 45.1 45.1 1 day 188 19.8 64.9 2 days 52 s.s 70.4 3 days 23 2.4 72.8 4 days 17 1.8 74.6 5 days 19 2.0 76.6 6 days 12 1.3 77.9 7 days 9 0 .9 78.8 8 days 11 1.2 80.0 9 days 7 0.7 80.7 10 days 3 0.3 81.0 11 or 12 days 11 1.2 82.2 13 to 1 5 days 16 1.7 83.9 16 to 20 days 23 2.4 86.3 21 to 30 days 40 4.2 90.S 31 to SO days 27 2.8 93.3 51 to 75 days 16 1.7 95.0 76 to 90 days 13 1.4 96.4 91 to 100 days 6 0.6 97.0 101 or more days 29 3.0 100.0 Total 951 100.0 Source : See table 1. appointed attorney could be reduced, jail overcrowding could be alleviated. Recommendations for Alleviating Overcrowded Jails Many people are booked into the Travis County Jail who need not be. The fact that counties have traditionally booked certain offenders into their jails is an insufficient The policy of incarcerating people who write bad checks is. an apparent waste of tax money. reason for continuing the practice. For example, not book­ing DWis and persons charged with drunk-related offenses into the Travis County Jail would reduce the number of bookings by 27 .2 percent. These individuals are not nor­mally violent, and using secure jail space, which is expensive space, to retain them is not economically feasible. Either they could be referred to a detoxification center that would provide the necessary treatment without the security re­quirements of a jail or they could be released to responsible third parties, such as spouses, neighbors, or attorneys. The Travis County study also indicates that local mer­chants are using the criminal justice system to collect on Table 3 Pretrail Incarceration by Race at Travis County Jail, 1979 Length of incarceration Over twenty-Less than Race four hours twenty-four hours White Number 170 295 Percentage 36.6 63.4 Black Number 110 88 Percentage 55.6 44.4 Hispanic Number 70 111 Percentage 38.7 61.3 Mexican nationals Number 9 2 Percentage 81.8 18.2 Other Number 2 Percentage 50.0 50 .0 Total Nu mber 361 4 98 Percentage 42.0 58.0 Source : See table 1. bad checks; the county is essentially acting as a debt collec­tion agency for merchants, and the expense of debt collec­tion is being borne by taxpayers. In Travis County a mer­chant with a bad check files a complaint with the local justice of the peace. After a certain number of days, if the check has not been paid, a warrant is issued and the check writer is arrested. He or she is then arraigned and given a period of time to make the check good. Once the check is made good a dismissal is entered in the case ; 9 5 percent of those booked on check offenses are released within three days. Incarcerating bad check writers is an apparent waste of tax money. Only habitual bad check writers should be ar­rested. Collection of other checks (except forgeries) should be a civil matter. A similar policy is used in Jackson County, where only 3.6 percent of the bookings were for hot checks (Travis County had 13 percent). Such a policy could reduce the number of individuals booked into the Travis County Jail by approximately 10 percent but would require a cen­tral system to screen and coordinate the filing of check offenses on a county basis. The process should be handled exclusively by the county prosecutor's office and not by individual justices of the peace. An additional benefit of using centralized screening by the county prosecutor is that a fee could then be collected from the bad check writer; no fee can be collected when the case is filed in a justice of the peace court. A court appointments officer should be appointed to screen people at the time of booking and identify those eligible for a court-appointed attorney. This officer would then ensure that the court-appointed attorney contacts the detained person within seventy-two hours of booking. Such early contact could reduce the total jail population. In addition, any measures that could reduce the percentage of blacks held over twenty-four hours to a level comparable to that for whites would also alleviate jail overcrowding. A unified information system monitoring the criminal justice system in Travis County daily would ensure that decisions regarding jails and jail policies are made on an informed basis. Currently the jail, the personal bond office, Table 4 Type of Attorney of Those Booked before Trail at Travis County Jail, 1979 Length of incarceration Type of attorney Over twenty-four hours Less than twenty-four hours Private Number Percentage Court appointed Number Percentage Self Number Percentage Total Number Percentage 18 38.3 37 82.2 0 0 .0 55 59 .1 29 61.7 8 17.8 1 100.0 38 40.9 Source: See table 1. and other related offices keep separate records, and there is no overall coordination or immediate access to information being kept by the other units. On the basis of the Travis County study, several recom­mendations can be made to other Texas counties that have overcrowded jails or anticipate such a problem. By eliminating unnecessary bookings a county can save expen­sive secure jail space for more serious offenders, decrease the chances of federal lawsuits, and save the taxpayers money. Notes 1. In After Conviction (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), Ronald Goldfarb and Linda Singer estimate that three million to four million people are in jails annually, while Hans Mattick, in "The Contemporary Jails of the United States: An Unknown and Neglected Area of Justice," Handbook of Criminology, ed. Daniel Glaser (New York: Rand McNally, 1974), pp. 777-848, estimates five million. These figures have undoubtedly increased, as have the number of prison inmates. 2. The figures are from Thomas Phelps, Charles Swanson, Jr., and Kenneth Evans, Introduction to Criminal Justice (Santa Monica, Calif.: Goodyear, 1979), p. 339. 3. The sample was drawn from the booking log and included every eighth person booked into the Travis County Jail in 1979. The data were collected from records in the jail, the personal bond office, county and district courts, magistrate's court, probation offices, and the Austin Police Department. University Microfilms International Please send additional information Name Institution Street City_ State_ Zip 300 North Zeeb Road 30·32 Mortimer Street Dept. P.R. Dept. P.R. Ann Arbor, Mi. 48106 London WIN 7RA U.S.A. England Traffic Accident Profiles for High-Risk Texas Drivers In 1980 there were 432,940 traffic accidents in Texas, including 4,424 fatalities. One death occurred on Texas highways about every two hours. In fact, for people under 30, traffic accidents are the major cause of death. Traffic accidents are complex events frequently involv­ing multiple causes, but the circumstances of accidents can be determined and traffic safety countermeasures can be specifically tailored to those circumstances. Four types of drivers are most likely to have accidents: drivers 25 years old and younger (especially males), those with two or more previous accidents or convictions, elderly drivers, and those convicted of driving while intoxicated. Accidents involving people in these groups tend to involve speeding (see figure 1) and driving at times of high risk, especially at night. Researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute com­puted the probabilities of future accidents for a sample of 225,000 Texas drivers. A two-year period was chosen and the drivers' performances during that period were compared to their driving records during the previous three years. The data were obtained from the accident and driver history files of the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transpor­tation. High-Risk Drivers Our study showed that young male drivers were signifi­cantly more likely to be involved in traffic accidents than older males. A 20-year-old man with no previous accidents or convictions is twice as likely to be in an accident in a given time period as a 30-year-old man. This higher proba­bility begins to decline at about age 20 and levels off at 30. Of even greater importance than age in predicting a driver's future accident involvement is previous driving Sarah C. Sitton is Associate Research Psychologist, Texas Trans­portation Institute, Texas A&M University System. This research was supported by funding from the Traffic Safety Section of the Texas State Highway Department. Sarah C. Sitton record. Drivers with previous traffic convictions or acci­dents are more likely to be involved in future accidents than drivers with no records. For males, previous accidents, especially negligent accidents, provide the best means of predicting a future accident. For example, a 30-year-old male with one negligent accident in a three-year period is almost twice as likely to b -I cnc :cm ~ :::! c: . Nonagricultural Employment .z ~ ~ -I<~ mm in Texas x ll Total (6,724) )> !!! Cl (/) -I ell (in thousands of employees) ~,, ~ 61­ N -I m x ~~ ):io) -I ~ ):io c: en :! z en m Z· ~ Services ( 1,096) , ,. Manufacturing (1,082) ' Government ( 1,055) en 'll ~ (j) m 'll ? 0 Construction (440) Transportation and -, ··--, •• -·---··'·•••,_••,-·-----·----•.•-·-­public utiI ities ( 389) -------------------Finance (358) ~:·---------·::. :::. ____..---------­Mining (293) ~ l>c: ~ i -! m x 1979 1981 ~ Data are current through December 1981. 81