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.
Clearly, state and local governments bear the lion’s share of the costs of fighting crime.
Measuring the costs to society and victims
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 9 for 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 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.
Studies attempting to estimate the annual economic cost of crime in the United States range from $690 billion on the low end to over $3.4 trillion. That is between $2,000 and $10,000 for every person in America!
Chapter 4
Helping Those in the Wake of Crime: Victims
IN THIS CHAPTER
The human toll of crime is enormous. Victims often suffer dramatic personal loss, tremendous pain, and lots of economic hardship. While the entire U.S. court system was originally set up to protect a defendant’s rights, historically, victims have received no institutionalized assistance at all. They’ve been left to fend for themselves, sometimes with no way to pay medical bills or even to get someone to explain how the justice system works. But thanks to some forward-thinking folks in the 1970s and 1980s, a victims’ rights movement has swept across the United States. Today, victims are front and center in the minds of politicians and policymakers.
In this chapter, I discuss the historical treatment of victims in the criminal justice system. I discuss victimization, starting with the different types of harm that a victim can suffer. I also help you get a better idea of who is more likely to become a victim of crime. Then I address how far U.S. society has come and describe the types of services that are available to victims today.
Looking at the Historical Treatment of Victims
Prior to the 1970s, if you were the victim of a crime, you were essentially just another witness for the government. Sure, people were sympathetic to you, but sympathy only goes so far. No one helped you get medical care, let alone reimbursed you for that medical care. A victim of domestic violence didn’t have a shelter she could take her family to. A rape victim had no one to provide counseling services. No one explained how the criminal justice system worked or provided any of the myriad of victim services that exist today.
In the 1970s, this situation slowly started to change as individual communities began to take action. District attorney offices in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Milwaukee got the