The Costs of Crime
By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, March 11, 2008


For more than two centuries, the political left has been preoccupied with the fate of criminals, often while ignoring or downplaying the fate of the victims of those criminals.
So it is hardly surprising that a recent New York Times editorial has returned to a familiar theme among those on the left, on both sides of the Atlantic, with its lament that "incarceration rates have continued to rise while crime rates have fallen."
Back in 1997, New York Times writer Fox Butterfield expressed the same lament under the headline, "Crime Keeps on Falling, But Prisons Keep on Filling." Then, as now, liberals seemed to find it puzzling that crime rates go down when more criminals are put behind bars.
Nor is it surprising that the left uses an old and irrelevant comparison -- between the cost of keeping a criminal behind bars versus the cost of higher education. According to the Times, "Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, and Oregon devote as much or more to corrections as they do to higher education."
The relevant comparison would be between the cost of keeping a criminal behind bars and the cost of letting him loose in society. But neither the New York Times nor others on the left show any interest in that comparison.
In Britain, the total cost of the prison system per year was found to be £1.9 billion, while the financial cost alone of the crimes committed per year by criminals was estimated at £60 billion.
The big difference between the two kinds of costs is not just in their amounts. The cost of locking up criminals has to be paid out of government budgets that politicians would prefer to spend on giveaway programs that are more likely to get them re-elected. But the far higher costs of letting criminals loose is paid by the general public in both money and in being subjected to violence.
The net result is that both politicians and ideologues of the left are forever pushing "alternatives to incarceration." These include programs with lovely names like "community supervision" and high-tech stuff like electronic devices to keep track of released criminals' locations.
Just how do you "supervise" a criminal who is turned loose in the community? Assigning someone to be with him, one on one and 24/7, would probably be a lot more expensive than locking him up.
But of course no one is proposing any such thing. Having the released criminal reporting to some official from time to time may be enough to allow the soothing word "supervision" to be used. But it hardly restricts what a criminal does with the other nine-tenths of his time when he is not reporting.
Electronic devices work only when they are being used. Even when they are being used 24/7, they tell you only where the criminal is, not what he is doing.
Those released criminals who don't even want that much restriction can of course remove the device and become an escapee, with far less trouble or risk than is required to escape from prison.
One of the most insidious aspects of "alternatives to incarceration" programs is that those who control such programs often control also the statistical and other information that would be needed to assess the actual consequences of these programs.
They not only control what information is released but to whom it will be released.
When officials whose careers are on the line can choose between researchers who view incarceration as being "mean-spirited" toward criminals and other researchers who are much less sympathetic to criminals, who do you think is going to get access to the data?
A study of the treatment of criminals in Britain -- "A Land Fit for Criminals" by David Fraser -- has several chapters on the games that are played with statistics, in order to make "alternatives to incarceration" programs look successful, even when they are failing abysmally, with tragic results for the public.
Britain has gone much further down the road that the New York Times is urging us to follow. In the process, Britain has gone from being one of the most law-abiding nations on earth to overtaking the United States in most categories of crime.


Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.

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An informed voter scares the Goverment lackeys.

An American first and always a Conservative.

Our whole judicial system is all screwed up. Until we stop imprisoning people for breaking pointless laws all the statistics mean exactly jack shit

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Some of the mandatory sentencing laws for drug violations are considered cruel and unusual punishment if you ask me. 10 years for a couple pounds of pot? A waste of resources if you ask me...

This is why violent crime run rampant. Because we waste time on things that do not matter. A guy pays a hooker for sex, or some black kid sells drugs out of his apartment...

Seriously, make the black market pay taxes for once, and we can focus our entire law enforcement on protecting people's life and property. Instead of worrying if someone is paying for sex or doing drugs.

When in reality what we should be worrying about. Is if that prostitute is of an adult age, or if that drug dealer is involved in violent crime. Chances are, the mere fact of the black market's various illegalities make them dangerous to society.

life works out better if you just realize people are gonna do, what they want to do. It is best to just allow them to do it, and make sure they pay their fair share of taxes and are regulated for safety and keep them from committing serious crimes...

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"It is the Right of the People to alter or abolish the Government"
Declaration of Independence
"Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself."
Thomas Jefferson
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."
Milton Friedman

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In Florida the Democratics are trying to restore the right to vote to convicted felons as the felons would vote for the Democratics.

Even more disturbing is a system that is willing to let out child predators from jail. Children are too vulnerable to risk even one by letting a predator out of jail.

We seem to constantly clash, but we do have more in common than might be apparent. The above is well said, and our differences in this area are too small to measure.

I have a friend doing 8 years for having joints in his glove box...

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"It is the Right of the People to alter or abolish the Government"
Declaration of Independence
"Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself."
Thomas Jefferson
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."
Milton Friedman

Just to keep going. Why do drugs lead to crime? The biggest reason is they can not sell it openly. So they need to break the law to sell it, first. Then they need to fight over turf with other street gangs to sell it.

So, have you ever known people high on crack to get high and kill someone, moreso, than alcohol? Have you ever known someone steal shit, to get money to buy stuff, moreso than alcoholics?

This is just ridiculous. It is very simple. Regulate, Tax and free up police to fight actual violent crime. Someobody doing drugs should not be a person's concern. Just as someone drinking. Untill of course you start to cross over into the rights of other people. Like we do with alcohol.

So, would you not agree, that under your very same mentality. That Government needs to pass Alcohol, tobacco prohibitions. Reinstate Sodomy Laws at the Federal Level. Prosecute people who have sex outside of marriage. Ban Red Meat, Sugar, Caffeine, Pornography, Gambling.

See, the very same mentality that drove prohibition of alcohol. Drives the prohibition on Narcotics. It's a new concept, as we scourge the backward puritan beliefs of this Nation's populace, and reintroduce the concept of Liberty and personal resonsability.

Give it 20 years and people will give up this stupid drug war and begin prosecuting crime that actually matters.

__________________
"It is the Right of the People to alter or abolish the Government"
Declaration of Independence
"Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself."
Thomas Jefferson
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."
Milton Friedman

I think we could empty a good portion of convicted criminals out of our system if we allowed non-violent offenders an opportunity to shorten or eliminate their sentence by serving four years in the military.

They would be out of the penal system, they would learn a trade, they would gain employment, they could benefit from the discipline, and could have pride in themselves.

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1. (Internet, pejorative) Statement expressing that someone is so stupid, they use their ass as a helmet; a stronger insult than asshat.

My favortie solution for non-violent offenders:

Keep them out of the prison system by letting their victims OWN them for a while. Le their victims own them until they work off their sentence, or till they work off the damages caused. If the victim doesn't want their offender working for them, they can sell them and their sentence to someone who does want free labor.

As for the drug issue...it doesn't matter if drug use leads to criminal behavior or not. Once you commit the crime, you broke the law regardless of whether you're high. There is no point in outlawing drugs other than to create an environment of fear within the citizens to justify atrocious rights infringments, increase in Gov't presence, and increase in revenue.

Nowhere in the entire Constitution is there anything that grants the Federal Government the authority to regulate drugs, prescription or street variety. Outlawing drugs didn't stop heroin addicts from being sometimes violent...it just added violent drug dealers to the mix, caused prices to become prohibitively high and increased violence related to aquiring money for drugs.

Which increased the perceived need for police...which increased the number of guns being used in the Drug War...which increased the violence...which increased the cost...which increased the violence...ad nauseum.

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