The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

728 THE FREEMAN Decemberchoose among alternatives. We maygive our wallet to an armed robber,under the circumstances. Mostof us grudgingly pay our taxes,rather than face the consequencesof refusing to pay. But thesechoices, the alternatives we chooseunder duress, differ from ourpurely voluntary spending. And inorder to know whether we've "everhad it so good," we ought to considerthose expenditures which areforced upon us, for things we'drather do without.Crime CostsAn example is the cost of crime.Government is essential for theprotection of life and property,and most people will willingly payto be protected from the few personswho have no respect for thelife and property of others. Butthe mounting incidence of crimein our affluent society calls forfurther consideration of the costsand possible causes.How do you feel about the costof installing a burglar alarm systemin your home? Or having neartamper-proof locks put on youroutside doors? Or the extra costof a buzzer to make certain youremove your auto keys? Or theextra cost of taking a taxi becauseyou're afraid to ride a subway?These are just a few of the manyexamples of the rising costs ofcrime over recent decades. Moredirect costs, of cOllrse, includelosses of life and property by personswho are objects of the burglaryor perhaps just innocent bystanders.Mounting also are thecosts of prevention, detection, andpunishment, including the hiringof extra police, additional courtcosts and the like. Attempts havebeen made to estimate such costsbut who can say, and with whataccuracy? What is certain is thatthe money one is forced to spendeither to prevent crime or to repairthe damages is money thatcannot be spent voluntarily forother things.No doubt, the people of theUnited States are among the mostproductive and affluent in theworld. We have a very high levelof living in automobiles, color televisionsets, the quality of food weeat, education, medical services,housing, leisure, travel, and a hostof other things.But our level of living also includesa few items we mightchange if we could. The costs andconsequences of crime are amongthese items.We can take littlecomfort in knowing that our crimecosts per capita may be the highestin the world! Much of the cost isburied in the total expenditures bygovernmental units - federal,state and local- the total supportof which takes some 40 per cent of