mises.org— "Every year, more prisons are built, more money is funneled to police departments, more criminal law is written and yet domestic crime remains a major problem."
Dec 22, 2006View in Crawl 4
Indeed the perverse incentive is that the State has no reason what so ever to solve "crime", because by doing so they would be put out of a job.That is why ever more consensual crimes, such as drugs, prostitution, gambling (unless it is state run, of course), smuggling, smoking, marrying, are always being made yet more illegal.Violent criminals are dangerous. A cop can get killed going after an actual killer. There's no such danger taking some lonely man's car, however, and more profit.
Great post. This article is a different take on domestic crime and the growth of the prison-security industry. George Orwell wrote that war is good for the health of the state. Well, this piece makes the same point when it comes to crime.
And if you keep the public focussed on all the new kinds of "crime", no-one notices that you're not doing anything about the existing crime. The incentive to criminalize normal behavior becomes irresistable, for that way the police gets more money without actually doing anything.
curthowlandDec 22, 2006
Indeed the perverse incentive is that the State has no reason what so ever to solve "crime", because by doing so they would be put out of a job.That is why ever more consensual crimes, such as drugs, prostitution, gambling (unless it is state run, of course), smuggling, smoking, marrying, are always being made yet more illegal.Violent criminals are dangerous. A cop can get killed going after an actual killer. There's no such danger taking some lonely man's car, however, and more profit.
firepigDec 23, 2006
Great post. This article is a different take on domestic crime and the growth of the prison-security industry. George Orwell wrote that war is good for the health of the state. Well, this piece makes the same point when it comes to crime.
cheapskateDec 24, 2006
And if you keep the public focussed on all the new kinds of "crime", no-one notices that you're not doing anything about the existing crime. The incentive to criminalize normal behavior becomes irresistable, for that way the police gets more money without actually doing anything.
p00pDec 26, 2006
Sensationalist and inaccurate title; this article has nothing to do with socialism.