Microsoft Word Heckman final 2007-03-22c jsb doc

 

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Crime 

Crime is a major burden on American society. Anderson (1999) estimates that the net cost 

of crime (after netting out transfers) is over $1.3 trillion per year in 2004 dollars. The per capita 

cost is $4,818, in the same dollars. This figure includes crime-induced production (of personal 

protection devices, trafficking of drugs and operation of correctional facilities) which costs $464 

billion per year; opportunity costs (production foregone by incarcerated offenders, valued at their 

estimated wage, time spent locking and installing locks, and so forth) of $152 billion per year; 

and the value of risks to life and health (pain, suffering and mental distress associated with health 

losses) of $672 billion annually (table 3). This includes time lost from work by victims as well as 

value of life lost to murders. Some of these items like the valuation of life require controversial 

judgments. Even ignoring any transfer component or any risks to life and health, the cost of crime 

is over $600 billion per year. Although such calculations are necessarily imprecise and there is 

disagreement over the exact costs, there is widespread agreement that the costs of crime are 

substantial. 

Even though crime rates have recently declined somewhat, their levels remain high (see 

figure 4a). The adult correctional populations (in prison or local jail, on probation or on parole) 

continue to grow despite the drop in measured crime rates (see figure 4b). The size of the 

population under correctional supervision has continued to increase for all groups, as has the 

percentage of each group under supervision. Nine percent of blacks were under the supervision of 

the criminal justice system in some form in 1997, although recently this adverse trend has 

slowed. Incarceration rates have risen steadily since 1980 and only slowed in the late 1990s. The 

inmate population has risen steadily until recently.

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  Expenditures on prisons, police and the 

judicial system continue to grow despite the drop in measured crime rates (see figure 4c). 

These statistics do not convey the full scope of the problem. According to the Bureau of 

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Justice Statistics (2004), as of the end of 2001, there were an estimated 5.6 million adults who 

had ever served time in State or Federal prison--4.3 million former prisoners and 1.3 million 

adults in prison. Nearly a third of former prisoners were still under correctional supervision, 

including 731,000 on parole, 437,000 on probation, and 166,000 in local jails. In 2001, an 

estimated 2.7% of adults in the U.S. had served time in prison, up from 1.8% in 1991 and 1.3% in 

1974. The prevalence of imprisonment in 2001 was higher for Black males (16.6%) and Hispanic 

males (7.7%) than for White males (2.6%). It was also higher for Black females (1.7%) and 

Hispanic females (0.7%) than White females (0.3%). Nearly two-thirds of the 3.8 million 

increase in the number of adults ever incarcerated between 1974 and 2001 occurred as a result of 

an increase in first incarceration rates; one-third occurred as a result of an increase in the number 

of residents age 18 and older. If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated one of 

every 15 persons (6.6%) will serve time in a prison during his or her lifetime. 

The lifetime chances of a person going to prison are higher for men (11.3%) than women 

(1.8%), and for Blacks (18.6%) and Hispanics (10%) than Whites (3.4%). Based on current rates 

of first incarceration, an estimated 32% of black males will enter state or federal prison during 

their lifetime, compared to 17% of Hispanic males and 5.9% of White males. 

 

What Can We Do about This Problem?   

It is now well established that education reduces crime. Figure 5, from Lochner and 

Moretti, displays this relationship, reported separately for blacks and whites. Increasing high 

school graduation rates is a major crime prevention strategy. Risk factors promoting crime 

include poor family backgrounds, which also promote high school drop out. Poorly educated 

teenage mothers in low-income families are much more likely to produce children who 

participate in crime.

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  We discuss the evidence on the impact of family background on child 

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participation in crime in the next section. Although analysts do not agree on which specific 

aspects of adverse family environments most affect crime, they all agree that there is a strong 

empirical relationship between early adverse environments and child participation in crime later 

on in life. 

Some of the most convincing estimates of the impact of adverse early environments on 

participation in crime come from interventions designed to remedy those environments. Table 4 

presents a summary of the impacts of a variety of early childhood intervention programs on 

participation in crime. We discuss some of these programs in much greater detail in below. Here 

we summarize some findings relevant to crime. 

Many of these programs were evaluated by the method of random assignment. Children 

from disadvantaged populations were randomly assigned, at early ages, to the enriched child 

development programs described in the third column of the table. Most interventions were for 

children in the pre-kindergarten years. Both the experimental treatment group and the controls 

were followed over time, often for many years after the intervention. The Perry Preschool 

program, which we discuss in detail below, followed the intervention and control children for 

more than 30 years after the intervention. Over that time, the Perry students averaged 

significantly fewer lifetime arrests than the comparison group, including arrests for dealing and 

producing drugs. This effect was especially pronounced for males. The Abecedarian program 

appears to be anomalous, because it did not reduce crime in the treatment group compared to the 

control group. It was administered to a population in a low-crime region in the South. Most 

studies show dramatic reductions in criminality and participation in the criminal justice system 

for treatment group members. Enriched environments reduce crime. Impoverished environments 

promote crime. 

Lochner and Moretti present convincing non-experimental evidence that increasing 

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