Steven Briggs - Criminology For Dummies

The most obvious costs of crime are the ones incurred through the government’s efforts to control it. And, of course, the largest cost of these efforts comes from compensating the law enforcement personnel who fight crime and incarcerate criminals.

Figure 3-3 shows the inflation-adjusted cost of state and local police protecting one citizen, from 2000 to 2017. You will notice there is a clear trend upward even though the national crime rates have decreased.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics

FIGURE 3-3:The cost of police protection since 2000.

The police are not the only asset that costs money. As I explain in Chapter 19in more detail, the number of people necessary to resolve one criminal case is astonishing. Here are just some of the steps — and the people — involved:

1 Police officers make an arrest.

2 A jail staff member books the suspect; in other words, he fingerprints and documents who the suspect is.

3 Another jail staff member moves the suspect into jail.

4 A police officer writes a report of the crime and sends it to the district attorney.

5 The district attorney decides whether to file charges against the suspect.

6 A secretary drafts an indictment, which is the charging document that lists the crimes.

7 A grand jury decides whether to indict the suspect.

8 The district attorney files an indictment with court staff.

9 Jail staff bring the defendant to a judge for arraignment, an initial appearance where the defendant is informed of the charges.

10 The judge appoints a defense attorney.

11 If the defendant wants a trial, the case is given to another judge.

12 The district attorney and the defense attorney select a jury.

13 The judge conducts the trial.

14 The defense attorney and district attorney bring their witnesses to court.

15 If the jury convicts the defendant, the defendant may go to jail or prison.

16 Corrections officers transport the defendant to jail or prison, move the defendant into a cell, and provide ongoing security.

17 A probation officer later oversees the defendant’s release from jail or prison.

Generally, you can break the functions that I describe in the preceding list into three categories:

Police (including detectives, patrol officers, and other police staff)

Judicial (including district attorneys and defense attorneys)

Corrections (including jail, prison, and probation personnel)

Operating courts, jails, and prisons all cost money.

Keep in mind that each of the three primary units of government — local, state, and federal — has separate criminal justice responsibilities. A local government, such as a city or county, has a police force, a court system, and a jail. A state government may also have its own police, courts, and prison system. And, of course, the feds have their own completely separate system of criminal justice, but it is much smaller. For example, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), one of the United States’ largest federal law enforcement agencies, has about 2,600 special agents who made a total of 9,975 arrests in 2018. In comparison, the city of New York’s police department, by itself, made 11 times more arrests in 2018 than the ATF.

Clearly, state and local governments bear the lion’s share of the costs of fighting crime.

In addition to the direct costs of administering a criminal justice system, you must keep in mind numerous other, less obvious costs. Quantifying these costs is an ongoing challenge for economists and criminologists alike.

For example, the cost of preventing crime throughout society can be quite large. Many retail stores have loss-prevention units. Many businesses and homes have security cameras and systems, and some also employ private security patrols. Some economists even include costs such as security lighting and locks in their estimates of how much crime costs society. They reason that these costs are ones that a crime-free society wouldn’t have to pay. And, of course, in addition to physical security, every business must have high-quality computer security to protect against Internet hackers and criminals.

After a crime occurs, all kinds of additional costs come into play. For example, a woman who had $100 stolen is obviously out $100. (Some economists argue that this loss isn’t a net loss to society because it’s just a transfer of wealth from a victim to a criminal.) But the woman may also lose wages or vacation time if she calls the police and ultimately has to go to court.

Property crimes (such as vandalism) and illegal drug manufacturing can dramatically impact the value of a home or even a neighborhood. During the methamphetamine manufacturing epidemic in the 2000s, meth labs sprang up seemingly everywhere in the West and Midwest. The chemical residue from a meth lab was so toxic that any house with a lab had to be completely scrubbed — the cleanup costs alone could reach up to $100,000. (While meth is still a major problem, the manufacturing of it now takes place almost exclusively in Mexico. See Chapter 9for more on international drug trafficking.)

Assessing the costs of violent crimes can be even more complex. A victim of a violent crime may incur costs for medical treatment and mental health counseling. Often victims themselves don’t bear the full cost of medical treatment; taxpayers, insurance companies, or hospitals pick up a significant portion.

A study by Philip Cook, Ted Miller, and Bruce Lawrence examined the medical cost of the 138,000 gunshot injuries that occurred in the United States in 1994. The medical cost was more than $2.3 billion (or about $17,000 per injury), and taxpayers picked up 49 percent of that cost.

A victim’s emotional trauma may be so extensive that it impacts his ability to earn a wage, resulting in a lower-paying job or even loss of work. Economists conclude that the emotional damage from rape and sexual assaults has the greatest economic impact of any crime (next to murder, of course). Another part of the economic impact of violent crime is the reduction in the quality of life that a victim endures from the injury itself. Some economists have used “pain and suffering” judgments from civil lawsuits to estimate the financial impact of a similar injury on the victim of a crime.

Economists may also consider the productivity loss to society when a person becomes a criminal rather than a positive, contributing member of society. The failure of a criminal to earn a wage and pay taxes is a net loss to society. Drug crime helps demonstrate this fact. After all, a drug dealer doesn’t pay taxes, and he sells a product that makes other people less productive in their legitimate jobs. Drugs also lead to social welfare costs because drug abusers often can’t care for their children or themselves and usually require several rounds of drug abuse treatment.

When you combine all these factors, you see how complex the cost analysis is, and you see how far-reaching and expensive the impact of crime is. For cybercrime alone, one survey found that, in 2019, a typical large company had $13 million in losses and security costs.