General Population:When people think about the costs of crime, they often think about the direct costs to victims, not about the broader costs to society
When people think about the costs of crime, they often think about the direct costs to victims, not about the broader costs to society. Crime harms society in a number of ways in general. The first is crime-induced production, which are the activities that would not be necessary in the absence of crime, such as the cost of running the criminal justice system (McLaughlin et al., 2016). For example, the cost of running local jails, plus federal and state prisons, runs about $80 billion annually; the
estimated annual expenditures are $113 billion for police, and $42 billion for the prosecutorial and judicial costs of processing state and local criminal cases (Kyckelhahn, 2011; Kyckelhahn, 2015). The Center for Popular Democracy (n.d.) estimates that in the United States we pay around $100 billion each year for policing (local, county, state, and federal). Unfortunately, as McLaughlin et al. (2016) have explained, the official estimates of corrections are missing the costs of pensions and the healthcare costs for both employees and prisoners, which would make it even higher, increasing it by around $91 billion annually.
The direct costs of running prisons is high. Image: Cell Block. Authored by Daniel Vanderkin. Source: https://pixabay.com/en/prison-jail-cell-cell-block- crime-598851/. License: CC-0
Some, like Pettus-Davis, Brown, Veeh, and Renn (2016), state that the real cost of running the criminal justice system is closer to $1 trillion, as the previous estimates ignore heavy social costs. For example, the cost of the courts is being transferred to the defendants, placing an increasing burden on them regardless of their guilt. These costs include lawyers’ fees (also applies for public defenders), room and board charges for jail, probation and parole services, and electronic monitoring costs, all of which would be left off of official estimates. This puts an undue burden on those with limited incomes, and in some cases, their debt becomes a reason they end up in jail. This has the deleterious effect of creating a revolving door in the system and an increased cost to society.
A second way crime affects society is through individuals who are released back into society. Those who have served their time and are released back into the community tend to earn lower wages, face discrimination in hiring and housing, and have weaker social networks because of their incarceration. Thus, after release, rather than becoming a productive member of society, many former convicts end up costing the community more because of these barriers. This case is nicely laid out in Shapiro’s (2014) article for NPR As Court Fees Rise, The Poor Are Paying the Price. Not only are they costing more, but society also experiences lost productivity, which are the wages (and taxes) that someone could have made if they were not in prison. McLaughlin et al. (2016) estimates these lost wages to be around $24.6 billion.
Significant barriers prevent people from reintegrating back into society, which contributes to the 68 percent recidivism rate we see in the United States. Recidivism is when someone who was convicted of a crime is released from prison and then reoffends following their release and is sent back to prison or jail. Barriers to reintegrating into society include difficulties like getting jobs, housing, educational, and welfare benefits, making recidivism more likely to happen. This cycle adds to both the financial and social costs of victimization. It also creates new victims of crime.
Overall, the costs of crime—to victims, their families and friends, business, and society—are high. When you add in the intangible cost, like mental health, the effects of crime are significant. In future modules, we will continue to discuss some of the costs of crime from specific types of victimization, like domestic violence.