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Crime isn't a partisan issue, since every candidate is against it. Bob Dole stopped in Aurora last week to say the Clinton administration isn't serious about fighting crime, and Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 after promising 100,000 more cops and similar enhancements to the noble cause of law and order.
Every national election since 1968 has focused on law and order. While this might make some sense for Democrats who favor an expanded federal government, it seems odd for Republicans.
They're always talking about returning power to the states and reducing the role of the federal government, but they also support crime bills that expand federal power and authority. I don't see how they can have it both ways, but my classes were in logic, not political science.
My background also includes a hard-shell Baptist upbringing. Discussions at dinner table often involved various interpretations of the Book of Revelations, especially whether the Second Coming would occur before or after rapture and tribulation.
The precise details of pre- and post-millennial eschatology have faded from memory, but I do recall talk of a prophesied 1000 years -- the Millennium -- when there would be no crime.
This leads to speculation. What if Pat Robertson is right, and the Millennium arrives some evening?
Without crime, we wouldn't need police. At last count, there were 553,773 full-time police officers in the United States, along with 212,353 non-badge police employees.
So we've got 766,126 full-time jobs, most with decent pay and benefits, that would disappear on that bright and shining morn when crime is no more. Figure about $40,000 a year per job, and that's a loss of $30 billion .
That's just state and local enforcement. We also have a
national government which, in Thomas Jefferson's words,
has erected a Multitude of New Offices, and sent hither
Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their
Substance.
All manner of federal agents have the power to fight crime by arresting us: FBI, BATF, Park Service police, Secret Service, IRS, DEA, US Marshal Service, etc. Nobody seems to keep track of just how much the various ministries spend on this enforcement, but it's probably at least $10 billion. The FBI alone costs $2.2 billion.
I can't find the numbers, but I have read that American corporations spend even more than that on private security, ranging from the jovial fellows at shopping malls to the hard-edged railroad detectives. Let's say $35 billion on that, and we're up to $75 billion.
Nor is this the only contribution of crime to the American economy. If we didn't have crime, we wouldn't need many forms of insurance, and another major economic sector would be damaged.
We can't forget lawyers and courts, which are expensive and thus vital to the economy, as well as the major growth industry these days -- prisons.
The prisoner population has been growing at an annual rate of 8.6 percent, and America leads the world in the number of inmates -- 1,012,463 at last count. Each prisoner costs about $25,000 a year on average, so prisons are a $25 billion industry all on their own.
Other aspects of the crime industry sector are even harder to estimate than insurance or lawyers. For example, how much do the media profit from crime? Newspapers use crime waves and gang wars to build circulation, TV shows feature gruesome murders, book publishers pay well for tales of serial killers, magazines enjoy sensational trials, movie producers enjoy record profits from selling violence -- but how to tabulate all this?
At the very least, crime is a $100 billion industry, and the actual figure is probably closer to $250 billion. Even at the low end, crime is bigger than all the agriculture in America. At the upper end, crime is larger than all transportation -- railroads, trucking, barges, pipelines, airplanes -- put together.
Given the size of crime, the American economy would collapse if any presidential delivered on a promise to eliminate it, or if the Millennium arrived.
But in the latter case, I think we'd recover quickly. We Americans are an inventive people, and in the past, when we've run short of criminals, we've always managed to devise new ones.
Last month, it was legal to build a campfire. This month, it's a crime. During World War II, patriotic farmers planted thousands of acres of hemp. Now its a felony good for at least a decade of making big rocks into little ones. A year ago, I could send anything I wanted out my computer; now I might be violating the Communications Decency Act.
And so it would be if the Millennium arrived. While a few crime-free days might be nice, there are just too many Americans who depend on crime. If it all went away, we'd just make some more. My faith in the Millennium may be shaky, but my faith in the American way is rock solid.
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