The High Cost of Crime
Crime is here to stay because so many jobs depend on it. From academic ivory towers to gritty mean streets, the criminal justice system is a growth industry.
Whether chasing speeders or hunting down serial killers, policing is big business. The uniformed cop on the street is the tip of the human resource iceberg. To their numbers can be added detective and criminalist teams, then civilian staff ranging from technicians and auto mechanics to bean counters and file clerks.
Law enforcement budgets are further swollen by equipment costs. Think only of the average police patrol car, often equipped with radios, onboard computers and cameras. Nor are those police stations built with only a few thousand dollars. Think millions, lots of millions.
Not enough: multiply by levels of jurisdiction--local, state/provincial, national. In the United States we have the FBI, DEA, ATF, ICE, Border Patrol, on and on, and these are just federal. Calling it all Homeland Security doesn't reduce the bottom line. If anything, it adds another level of cost.
Nor is all of this enough. How about by-law enforcement? Meter maids, dog catchers, anti-smoking and anti-noise sleuths, and, of course, the army of civilian security guards in our malls and warehouse districts.
For serious felonies and misdemeanors, arrest doesn't end the cost. Now come phalanxes of lawyers and judges, plus their support staff, their equipment, and their buildings. Many of these are definitely high-priced help. They securely argue that justice must be seen to be done and in nations of laws this is essential.
Conviction for a crime may result in probation. More workers and infrastructure are needed to fill this niche in the supply chain.
Or there's imprisonment, and here, the costs get very heavy. Local lock-ups, county/provincial jails, state and federal prisons. Thousands more workers, plus operating and capital costs. Yet, "build it and they will come" isn't just a motivator for more "fields of dreams." It also works for prison construction. Of what use is a prison without inmates? Moreover, many prisons are now operated by private "for-profit" contractors.
At the end of imprisonment may come parole. That means parole supervisors, their support staff, and their infrastructure. Nor can halfway houses be forgotten.
Not so much topping up all of this, but actually helping to get the budgetary ball rolling and keep it rolling are social scientists, trainers, instructors, seminar leaders, etcetera.
Indirect costs, to keep the system operative are the Shadowland of criminal justice--items like insurance, health care, family relief, and victim compensation.
Finally, the system is a bureaucracy; for that matter, many intertwined bureaucracies. Bureacracies do two things, for sure: they self-perpetuate and they grow. In this case, crime and criminals are the feed stock.
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