According to a United Nations report posted by MSNBC, the United States is the leading country in financial loss due to violent crimes; the cost estimated around 45 billion dollars. During a time of recession, this information sheds more light on the impact crime has on our society. Combined with the very real struggle law enforcement agencies face to retain employees and maintain budgets, the report signals a very serious factor degrading our communities.
Interpreting the Report
The U.N. report takes several factors into account when investigating each country's financial lost. The initial cost of a violent death is decided by a handful of factors, including:
- Medical Care
- Legal Proceedings
- Lost Investment
- Property Damage
On top of this, the report also tries to take into account the lost earning potential that occurs when a victim is either killed or hospitalized due to their injuries. In short, the report has found a number that they believe best constitutes the causal cost of crime as well as the lost efficiency due to crime.
Effect on Communities
With the cost of living increasing, the quality of a community's schools, roads, and utilities are put in question as budgets have to constantly be adjusted for what seems like endless cuts. In an impoverished area with high rates of violent crime, such as inner-cities, these budgets can be even more restrained as they bear the burden of these crimes.
Solutions to the Economics of Crime
This situation calls into question rising police budgets or rising wages which are used to attract an ever diminishing pool of college educated workers. It is open for debate why many agencies have trouble maintaining or adding to staff levels or why law-enforcement budgets stay equal or less than previous years in growing communities. However, this situation does create a necessity for innovative tactics and community involvement.
In New York, Operation Impact is a police tactic to saturate dangerous neighborhoods with officers on foot to create a more intimate presence in the community. It allows for a fluid theater of operation as the agency's attention shifts to whatever neighborhood is the worst creating policy that is part reactionary and part preemptive and has been wildly successful.
Violent crimes of any type demean human life and work towards ruining the security of a community, in part creating our modern day slums. While it is not fair to say that crime is an exclusive entity acting against social welfare and not a symptom of greater problems, the truth is that crime's impact does perpetuate the anti-social behaviors that encourage further violence.
Neighborhoods can look to police agencies to help relieve this problem, but no officer can be everywhere they need to be, so it also up to the communities themselves to monitor their own streets. Social change can only truly occur when every part of a society participates.
