Читать книгу Criminology For Dummies - Steven Briggs - Страница 61

The most obvious costs of crime are the ones incurred through the government’s efforts to control it. And, of course, the largest cost of these efforts comes from compensating the law enforcement personnel who fight crime and incarcerate criminals.

Figure 3-3 shows the inflation-adjusted cost of state and local police protecting one citizen, from 2000 to 2017. You will notice there is a clear trend upward even though the national crime rates have decreased.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics

FIGURE 3-3: The cost of police protection since 2000.

The police are not the only asset that costs money. As I explain in Chapter 19 in more detail, the number of people necessary to resolve one criminal case is astonishing. Here are just some of the steps — and the people — involved:

1 Police officers make an arrest.

2 A jail staff member books the suspect; in other words, he fingerprints and documents who the suspect is.

3 Another jail staff member moves the suspect into jail.

4 A police officer writes a report of the crime and sends it to the district attorney.

5 The district attorney decides whether to file charges against the suspect.

6 A secretary drafts an indictment, which is the charging document that lists the crimes.

7 A grand jury decides whether to indict the suspect.

8 The district attorney files an indictment with court staff.

9 Jail staff bring the defendant to a judge for arraignment, an initial appearance where the defendant is informed of the charges.

10 The judge appoints a defense attorney.

11 If the defendant wants a trial, the case is given to another judge.

12 The district attorney and the defense attorney select a jury.

13 The judge conducts the trial.

14 The defense attorney and district attorney bring their witnesses to court.

15 If the jury convicts the defendant, the defendant may go to jail or prison.

16 Corrections officers transport the defendant to jail or prison, move the defendant into a cell, and provide ongoing security.

17 A probation officer later oversees the defendant’s release from jail or prison.

Generally, you can break the functions that I describe in the preceding list into three categories:

 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.

Keep in mind that each of the three primary units of government — local, state, and federal — has separate criminal justice responsibilities. A local government, such as a city or county, has a police force, a court system, and a jail. A state government may also have its own police, courts, and prison system. And, of course, the feds have their own completely separate system of criminal justice, but it is much smaller. For example, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), one of the United States’ largest federal law enforcement agencies, has about 2,600 special agents who made a total of 9,975 arrests in 2018. In comparison, the city of New York’s police department, by itself, made 11 times more arrests in 2018 than the ATF.

Clearly, state and local governments bear the lion’s share of the costs of fighting crime.