The Economic and Human Costs of Protecting Criminals

Treating cops like suspects and lawbreakers as victims is a bad deal for taxpayers and especially for the poor.

By Jason L. Riley. Excerpts:

"Last year, 327 career criminals were responsible for 30% of New York City’s 22,000 shoplifting arrests, according to the New York City Police Department. “And guess what,” said the exasperated NYPD official who announced the findings at a press conference last week. “Two hundred thirty-five of them—so 235 out of 327—are walking around the streets of New York right now.”

Thanks to bail-reform legislation enacted by lawmakers in Albany (and other state capitals) in recent years, most shoplifting suspects are protected from pretrial detention, and judges aren’t permitted to consider a defendant’s danger to the community."

"There’s little doubt that these policies, promoted in the name of social justice for the poor, result in more crimes being committed by people who otherwise would be behind bars. A study by two professors at the University of Utah, Paul Cassell and Richard Fowles, concluded that “after more generous release procedures were put in place, the number of released defendants charged with committing new crimes increased by 45%.”"

"the study found that “the number of pre-trial releases charged with committing new violent crimes increased by an estimated 33%.”"

"retailers recorded nearly $100 billion in thefts in 2022, up more than 26% from the previous year."

"A 2021 paper published by the University of Chicago’s Journal of Law and Economics put annual spending on policing and corrections at about $250 billion. Meanwhile, a study released the same year by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation “conservatively estimated” that the yearly cost of personal and property crimes in the U.S. is $2.6 trillion. By that comparison, it’s hard to conclude that we spend too much money on law enforcement."