Emails, Alejandro Garcia, press secretary, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Sept. 29 and Oct. 1, 2015

2:31 p.m.

This issue is not even debatable. The Lt Governor uses 15% as the number of citizens that commit 100% of crime as an indicator of the number of criminals in the total population to make the point that most citizens are law abiding. That is higher than statistics would indicate. According to law enforcement data we have approximately 2.2 million people in jail in America and another 5 million on probation and parole. That is roughly 2.5% of the total population that has been convicted of a crime including non-violent drug offenses.

Thank you sir,

Alejandro Garcia

Press Secretary

Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Texas

-----Original Message-----

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)

Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2015 3:04 PM

To: Lt Gov Media

Subject: RE: Following up

Share the described data?

wgs

W. Gardner Selby

Editor

PolitiFact Texas

Austin American-Statesman

3:08 p.m.

That is all we have to add.

Thank you.

Alejandro Garcia

Press Secretary

Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Texas

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)

Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2015 11:49 AM

To: Lt Gov Media

Subject: Following up

To this moment, I've found no data that add up to what the lieutenant governor said in the interview, and that would include the backup you offered without elaboration.

Criminologists tell me it's not even possible to factually devise a statement linking all crime to a specific percentage of the population.

Alejandro, feel free to let me know if you have any other information; it would be nice to share how Patrick got to his specific 15/100 formulation.

I hope to complete our fact check soon.

g.

4:20 p.m.

Nothing further to add.

Alejandro Garcia

Press Secretary

Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Texas