Dear Editor,

A recent guest editorial in the Times News addressed the issue of prison inmate population in our nation. Citing federal government statistics, the author claimed there is an inordinately high percentage of U.S. citizens languishing behind bars because of an unfair criminal justice system, and that we should let them out - if, for no other reason - to save tax dollars.The editorial speaks to the efforts of a Philadelphia area assemblyman, yet another progressive leftist, who is proposing to rewrite this commonwealth's sentencing laws so we can free our wrongly incarcerated citizens.However, as usual, there's a fatal flaw with the progressive left's interpretation of raw data in pursuit of their oddball agenda. While prison population figures nationwide are undeniably high, this does not mean we are incarcerating too many American citizens or that our sentencing laws are unfair. Given the indisputable fact that four out of every 10 prisoners in California alone are known illegal aliens, any reasonable person can conclude that our jails and prisons are not housing American citizens at historic levels. In truth, we are incarcerating hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals - other nations' citizens - who were in our country illegally when they committed their crimes on American soil.Nationwide, roughly 30 percent of convicts sitting in our jails and prisons are illegal aliens who have no business being in our country in the first place. They were criminals in their own countries before they came here. Find a way to prevent these people from entering the United States and our prison population levels will drop dramatically. Do nothing and the prisons will overflow.L. Ernie FoucaultKresgeville