Crime is one of the most intriguing phenomena that tickle the minds of researchers and investigators all over the globe. According to Abrahamic religions, Murder occurred first since the time of Cain and Abel. Fueled by jealousy, Cain murdered his brother Abel, as Cain’s divine sacrifice wasn’t accepted. Of course, crime has developed in parallel to human development itself. The study of crime has been depicted in many tv shows, yet the one that stunned me the most was Mind Hunter. The show did great in depicting the murders and ideology of real-life serial killers and portraying the development of criminology as a field of study. The show is based on a book by John E. Douglas and Robert K. Ressler, two retired FBI Agents who established the behavioral science unit in the late 1970s, studying psychopaths and serial killers.
Concurrently, Nobel winning economist Gary Becker, was developing his theory on crime and punishment. Becker tried to understand the motives behind criminal acts in the sense of costs and benefits. Becker argued that reducing crime can only happen if the cost of the criminal act overweighs the benefits coming from it. However, criminal acts may impose direct effects on the government, as well as indirect effects on individuals not related to the crime itself.
Crime has made way to the establishment of full-on criminal organizations, including the infamous Japanese Yakuza. Criminal organizations may control several sectors of the economy, and their effect on the free market is not to be neglected. Moreover, governments allocate a part of their expenditure in order to understand, control, and curb criminal activities. In this post we will try to understand the crime using an economic approach, as well as deciphering the Becker’s model of crime and punishment without delving into the statistical mumbo jumbo.
Underworld 101
Criminal organizations have sustained through time, and while some have perished, some still exist. I’m sure we have all heard of Pablo Escobar, the Columbian drug lord notorious for giving the American CIA and DEA a hard time. Escobar’s Power was great, and his influence on the impoverished Columbians was notable. Escobar built hospitals, housing, and even financed a local football team. This set him as a national hero, and a victor of its poor. The death of Escobar fell heavily on the poor Columbians, as their robin hero was no longer there to aid them through their poverty, and the cocaine trade fell in the hands of rival cartels.
Meanwhile, the Japanese Yakuza persists to date. The yakuza may be called an ancient criminal organization, as their existence can be traced back to the 17th century. In the modern day, the yakuza has established itself as the largest Mafia group in Japan. Just like developed countries, the portfolio of the yakuza is diversified. The activities of the yakuza extend from your typical day-time robbery, to completely controlling the underworld economy. With their main goal being financial gain, the yakuza is the main provider for the informal economy.
The yakuza engages in drug dealing, gun trade, loaning, gambling, and even prostitution. The prostitution services provided by the yakuza go way back to the Second world war. During WWII, the yakuza provided women for the imperial soldiers for pleasure, and I don’t need to elaborate further. From there, the yakuza has expanded into sex trafficking, sex tourism, porn production, and they even control the red-light district in Japan (Nope, google it). the prostitution industry is a big deal in Japan, and the number of sex related businesses have reached 33,000 companies as of 2022. Moreover, the yakuza control the entirety of the day labor in Japan (construction work, etc.) and have even extended their influence into the formal economy buy opening legitimate businesses backed by their dirty money.
You are found guilty!
Shame on you! You have committed a crime and now the government will have to spend from their budget to keep you contained. Governments spend enormous amounts of money each year building incarceration and rehabilitation facilities to contain the ever-expanding prison population. Looking at data from the United States, the figures show that the U.S government spends billions a year as prison and jail expenses.
According to the LAO, the cost of incarceration in California per inmate is 110,000 thousand USD a year. This huge number include costs of health care, operations, inmate support and food. This is a Ludacris amount of money, it’s almost as high as the per capita GDP of Qatar!!!! Furthermore, building prisons isn’t cheap. This boring looking block of concrete can cost as high as a billion USD to build. One example of that is a prison currently being built in Alabama, USA. Planned to house 4000 inmates, this super-sized prison is one of the largest in the world. The average cost of incarceration in Alabama is 17,000 per inmate, so if we make a simple calculation, we can find that the total inmate costs of the new super-sized prison will be equal to 68 million USD.
The Becker model of crime and punishment
The augmented Becker model calculates the possibility of theft and its relationship to several economic and social factors. The model supposes that rational criminal decisions(lol) are affected by the expected utility of the criminal action itself. This means that people are most likely to commit a certain crime if the benefit of the crime is greater than the risks included. This means that a person may decide to steal an amount of money, given that the possibility of his incarceration is low. Moreover, the variables in the model include social factors like norms, personal attitudes, age, gender, level of education, and income. Those variables reflect the possibility of the committed crime based on the historical experience of the subject, as well as his financial background.
One striking finding of the model is related to the age of the subjects. According to the model, younger subjects are more likely to commit theft in comparison to their senior counterparts. The model does not aim to stop criminal activities, but to mediate the losses associated with it. Government policies that have adopted the model are aimed at minimizing the intensity of the variables associated with the model. This is done through providing better health care, financial aid, better education, and increasing the expected penalties for crimes.
Conclusion Crime has manifested in several forms through the years, and with its development, the means of stopping crime must develop accordingly. Understanding the forms of crimes may be the key to minimizing its effects on people and on the economy. Unfortunately, aside from serial murders and pre-existing evil, most crimes are fueled by poverty. Supporting the argument is the world’s poorest countries. The crimes rates in the poor countries of the world is extremely high and have led way for abnormal phenomenon to exist. One country notorious for its crime rate is Liberia. The possibility of all sorts of crimes are very high, starting from carjacking to murders at the hands of their infamous warlords. Finaly, the choice of committing a crime is not a personal one, but an influence of the inequality and upbringing of the subject engaging in it.