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Why
are Public Safety, Crime Prevention, and Victimization Important?
According to a survey conducted by the
City of Austin, residents rate emergency police response, services for
youth, and community policing as high priorities for city services (City
of Austin, November 1999).
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A
safe community is the highest priority of a citizenry.
Maslow, 1976
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While crime rates in Texas and nationally have been
decreasing since 1995, incarceration rates have been increasing.1 With
150,000 prison beds, Texas leads the nation in prison construction (Mauer,
1999). Since 1982, the State has spent $2.7 billion on prisons, and spending
in this area does not appear to be abating (Texas
Criminal
Justice Policy Council, March 1999). Between 1998-1999 and
2000-2001, State biennial spending on prisons
increased by about 23%, while overall State spending increased
by only 16% (Center for Public Policy
Priorities). Similarly, local spending on criminal justice/public
safety expenses has also consistently increased. While Travis County
spent approximately $60 million on criminal justice/public safety
expenses in FY 1992, the County spent $110 million in FY 2000,
a 55% increase (Travis County Fiscal Year 2000 Adopted Budget).
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"We're
on a new higher plateau of crime, which means a new, higher and,
I think, permanent prison population. It is very hard for a free
society to figure out how effectively to deal with crime rates
other than by imprisonment."
James Q. Wilson (Mauer, 1999)
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Table 1.
Estimated Cost of One Career Criminal
to the American Public
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Description
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Cost |
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Juvenile Career (4 years @ 1 - 4
crimes per year)
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Victim Costs
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$62,000 - $250,000 |
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Criminal Justice Costs
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$21,000 - $84,000 |
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Adult Career (6 years @ 10.6 crimes
per year)
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Victim Costs
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$1,000,000 |
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Criminal Justice Costs
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$335,000 |
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Offender Productivity Loss
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$64,000 |
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Total Career
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Total Crime Cost
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$1.5 - $1.8 million |
Source: Snyder & Sickmund, September 1999 [from Mark Cohen's
The monetary value of saving a high-risk youth, Journal of Quantitative
Criminology, 14(1)].
In addition to the cost of building prisons, criminal
behavior imposes other burdens on the community, including costs to victims
and lost productivity caused by incarceration. A 1998 study by Mark Cohen
estimated the cost an average career criminal imposes on society. Costs
were based on estimates of the number and range of crimes the average career
criminal commits, including tangible and intangible2 costs
to victims, costs to the criminal justice system, and productivity losses
caused by incarceration. Discounted to present-value dollars, the total
costs imposed by a life of crime were estimated at $1.3 to $1.5 million3 (Snyder & Sickmund,
September 1999). (See Table 1.) This type of analysis
shows the value of investing early in high-risk youth.
Assessment Home
1. Incarceration
rates have increased as a result of changes in law and policy that have
increased the number of individuals entering prisons and increased sentence
lengths.
2. Intangible costs included pain,
suffering, and diminished quality of life of victims. Costs were quantified
according to widely accepted techniques developed by economists for purposes
of cost-benefit analyses.
3. The analysis included only those
costs associated with adding a single individual to the pool of career
criminals. No attempt was made to estimate a single criminal's share
of aggregate crime costs (costs incurred because of the fear of crime,
for example) which would have yielded a much higher figure.
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