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Social Welfare

Social Welfare. The Impact of Crime on Society.

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Social Welfare

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  1. Social Welfare The Impact of Crime on Society

  2. Your students have the option to order their course materials from our online store to be either shipped to them or reserved in store for pick up. We have assigned a unique username & password for ordering your class reader. Your course reader is now available for students to order online. Please inform your students that they can place their reader order by: 1) Logging on to www.alternativecopy.com 2) Clicking on the 'Order Readers' link in the top right corner of our home page 3) Entering your class username & password below: Username: ucsbecon160r                     Password: votey29 **Please note that both username and password are lowercase** As before, we continue to sell the readers at our store as well. Thank you again for choosing the Alternative.

  3. Two Issues Today: • What is it worth to the average student to not have their bicycle stolen? • What is the impact of crime on society?

  4. Preview of Coming Attractions • Evaluate public sector activities in terms of benefits and costs • Costs: $ • Benefits ? How do we value public safety? There is not a “market” for public safety • Benefit cost ratio: benefits/costs • benefits/costs = crime*price/costs Crime: How much crime is there? Crime: Does society focus on the right types of crime?

  5. Who is this guy?

  6. Preview of Coming Attractions • Why is the Public Provision of Goods and Services in Crisis? • Costs are out of line with benefits • The management of the public provision of goods and services is out of the control of the public What we will learn in econ 160 also has application to other public sector goods such as health care and education. We will focus on public safety for our story and examples

  7. Outline and Issues • Course logistics: http://www.econ.ucsb.edu • Criminal Justice System (CJS) & economic paradigm: where do the values (prices) come from to evaluate the states (outcomes) of the CJS? • How much crime is there? How do we know? • Crime has two effects: • Redistribution of welfare from the victim to the perpetrator • Opportunity cost or waste of resources for defense

  8. SERIOUSNESS SURVEY RATE THE SERIOUSNESS OF EACH OF THE FOLLOWING BEHAVIORS ON A SCALE FROM ZERO( LEAST SERIOUS) TO TEN( MOST SERIOUS): 1. HOMICIDE ___ 2. MASS POISONING ( e.g. TYLENOL) ___ 3. FORCIBLE RAPE ___ 4. ARSON: SET FIRE TO A GARAGE ___ 5. SELLING HEROIN ___ 6. AUTO THEFT ___ 7. EMBEZZLEMENT OF $1,000 ___ 8. PROSTITUTE IN A HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION ___ 9. POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA ___ 10. SNIFFING GLUE ___

  9. A Theme for this Course • Criminal Justice System is in crisis. • Courts told former Governor Schwarzenegger to find housing for prisoners or release them early • City and County jails are overflowing and a revolving door policy is in effect. Repeat offenders clog the system • Not enough judges and prosecutors

  10. We have met the enemy and he is us

  11. 2006

  12. It Has Not Always Been This Way • The Criminal Justice System had been relatively stable in the decade after World War II • What happened? That is the story of this course. • We will review the history of criminal justice in the 60 years since WW II. • We will suggest policies that will help turn things around now. In brief, what is needed is triage, i.e. to use scarce resources that will improve public safety the most.

  13. Social Welfare The Impact of Crime on Society

  14. Questions about crime • Is crime a real problem or a media induced problem? • Is crime an economic problem? • Are we getting our money’s worth for the dollars we spend on police, jails, and prisons?

  15. Taking Crimes • Robbery • Burglary • Auto Theft • Larceny

  16. How is Crime Measured • Victimization Surveys of Households • U S Dept of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization • Citizen (Victim) Reports to Police • U S Dept of Justice, FBI, Uniform Crime Reports

  17. http://www.fbi.gov/homepage.htm Uniform Crime Reports Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, http://www.albany.edu/ sourcebook

  18. Measures of Crime: Offense Rates • Thefts per 1000 registrations(FBI) = registrations per household * thefts per 1000 households(NCVS) • if registrations per household were growing in the 90’s then thefts per 1000 registrations would not fall as fast as thefts per 1000 households

  19. http://ag.ca.gov 2007 1983

  20. 1966 2005

  21. Questions about the Operation of CJS • If crime is going down, why are we devoting more resources to its control? • If drug offenders are mostly non-violent, why do we send them to state prison instead of rehabilitation?

  22. Sources of Criminal Justice Information On the Internet Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics: http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/ Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/03cius.htm Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ Crime in California, http://caag.state.ca.us/cjsc/pubs.htm California Department of Corrections, http://www.corr.ca.gov/

  23. Two Perspectives On Crime • No Problem • It’s Bad

  24. Crime as Income Redistribution • The Robin Hood Myth • Take from the rich and give to the poor • The impact on social welfare • depends on your views or values • socialist versus a capitalist

  25. 41 Robin Hood Movies Silent film in 1908

  26. Crime as a dead weight loss • Loss of resouces spent on defense • protection of homes • protection of cars • protection of bicycles • Resources spent on defense • could be spent on goods and services • in the absence of crime • The impact on social welfare • Unambiguously bad

  27. What is the nature of crime? • Income redistribution? • or dead-weight loss?

  28. Economists Assume You Know What You Like • Lingo: economists call these consumer tastes or consumer preferences

  29. Thief’s Income Victim’s Income

  30. Thief’s Preferences 1. More is better, greedy 2. Indifferent to victim Thief’s Income High Medium Low Victim’s Income

  31. Economists Assume You Can make Comparisons • For example: the thief can compare a high level of his income and a low level of the victim’s income with a high level of his income and a high level of the victim’s income • in the case just illustrated, the thief values these the same since his income stays the same • the thief does not care whether the victim’s income is high or low, i.e. he is indifferent

  32. Victim’s Preferences 1. more is better, greedy 2. indifferent to the thief Thief’s Income low medium high Victim’s Income

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