Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment

Crime always goes down when the economy is good. That is because there is more money for police, but probably more importantly, because there are less people who are desperate for money, or could not make money in a legal way.

One of the overriding principles of justice, is the principle of proportionality. The punishment should always be proportional to the crime. That makes it necessary to define a scale for the severity of crimes. It allows a comparison of several crimes between each other, and provides a quick indication of what the punishment ought to be in an ideal, fair, objective world.

The most convenient measure of severity is probably a dollar value. Since ideally, a crime is committed when an action is taken that hurts others, the severity of a crime can easily be defined as the dollar value of the harm inflicted. For example, if a criminal steals a car worth $15, 000, the severity of the crime is really $15, 000.

It gets more tricky when violence is involved, but the dollar approach still works nicely. Let's say a criminal assaults and hurts somebody. The dollar value of the crime could be the cost incurred by the victim to get treatment for his or her wounds (including possible health insurance payments, since in that case the insurance company would be victimized as well).

The dollar value also needs to include the cost of any time lost to get treatment, and go to court etc.

Another tricky thing is how to account for murder. What is the dollar value of a human life lost? Several approaches could be taken. One would be to try to calculate the lost revenue otherwise generated by the victim (at work for instance), possibly multiplied by some fixed factor to reflect intangible harm.

But that would make the calculation subjective, because it is based on the victim's salary. A better way would be to define a conventional dollar value for a human life. That value would be the amount of money society would be willing to spend in order to save one life. It could be based on the cost of safety legislation, or the amount of money paid by charities, or a combination of many elements.

For the US, the number would probably end up between 1 and 5 million dollars. (Sadly, it would be significantly lower in some developing countries). Now, if a violent crime does not result in death, but in temporary or permanent impairment, an appropriate fraction of the cost of a human life could be taken.

If the crime (e.g. burglary or murder) was not actually committed, but only attempted, the dollar value could be computed as the dollar value of the most likely harm that would have been inflicted, multiplied by the probability that the crime would actually have been committed (had it not been prevented).

This approach would result in an objective way to rate crime, as well as in a method to calculate how many resources should actually be spent fighting certain crimes.

It is clear that violent crime (murder etc.) would rate very high, like it should. However, so-called "consensual" or "victimless" crimes would rate low, like they probably should as well. Drug use and prostitution would not fetch a high dollar value, because nobody really gets hurt (besides possibly the perpetrator).

It could still be possible to criminalize consensual crimes based on the dollar value paid on the crime itself. That could be $100 or $200 for someone using a prostitute, or $20 for someone smoking a joint.

But the system would avoid situations where people get extended jail time for minor infractions. It would also make sure that people who commit serious crimes, would get adequate punishment.

Some additional consideration:

• Condemned or seized property would have to be counted as part of the punishment
• Jail time as a punishment should be counted at its cost to society. Probably about $30, 000 per year, plus another $30, 000 of opportunity cost because the jailed person will not be able to work.

Police Officers

Crime always goes down when the economy is good. That is because there is more money for police, but probably more importantly, because there are less people who are desperate for money, or could not make money in a legal way.

In order to guarantee that safety, we need some laws, and a strong and well-trained police force to enforce them. Americans have a lot of money. Therefore, they can afford to pay a lot of taxes and hire a lot of police officers.

Actually, the number of law enforcement officers per capita is about the highest in the world. People like to be safe. So far, everything is fine. Lots of money, lots of police, safe streets. Not quite.

If all the police officers would only go after robbers and violent criminals, crime would indeed be low and safety high. Unfortunately, it does not work that way. Once the police are on the street, they always seem to end up going after prostitutes, underage drinkers and recreational drug users.

That is frustrating, because of the taxes we pay. It is frustrating because of the safety we don't get. It is frustrating, because people who really don't harm anyone find themselves being harassed, judged and hauled to jail, and the public ends up paying for it all.

The problem is not that we are not tough enough on crime; the problem is that we are way too tough on the wrong crimes.