Lock Them All Up, Save Billions

A Slate story reports that one study at Iowa State calculates the cost of each murder at $17 million. This is not a newsflash. Violent crime has big, big costs to society. Anxious Whites eager to avoid the constant crime wave that Blacks and Hispanics bring move out to far distant exurbs, like the Russian Army in 1941 desperately trading time and space with Wehrmacht. Each murder brings a huge hole in the lives of family and friends. A son no longer there to take care of his aging parents (a theme going back to the Illiad) or provide sons and daughters for the community. A woman no longer there to take care of her children. Community co-operation, shattered, as willingness to help becomes less, and vigilance to avoid being next becomes more.

As the study notes, violent offenders can cost greater than $150 million. So, Lock Them All Up.


The study shows, how wise it is to be tough on crime. Particularly violent crime, since a man in prison for rape, cannot go on to murder (at least not anyone in society at large). Armed Robbers cannot escalate to murder in the larger society, nor can sex offenders go on to rape, and assault, and kill again.

Programs to "save at-risk youth" have failed, completely, and absolutely. As have rehabilitation programs. Thus, prison is a bargain. At twice the price.

A multicultural society is necessarily either an extremely violent one, or one with lots and lots of prisons. Given the preponderance of crime committed by Blacks and Latinos (Mexicans, really). Just exactly why Blacks and Latinos offend at a much higher rate than Whites and Asians is a matter of debate. It might be culture, it might be something hard-wired, it might be a combination of both. Regardless, more than fifty years of programs and initiatives and all sorts of efforts have not changed this disparity. Asians commit the least crimes (and this includes those from South East Asia, particularly Vietnam, where gang membership is not uncommon). Whites the next least, per capita. Black the most, followed by Hispanics (Mexicans).

No one would be happier than Whites and Asians if Blacks and Hispanics suddenly became in criminal behavior like Whites and Asians. For one thing, there would not be a constant search for exurban real estate, away from Black and Hispanic filled city centers and inner suburbs. Cities like Southern California's Bell, or Downey, or even South Central would be flooded with real-estate hungry yuppies, even in this market, if Blacks and Hispanics suddenly had offender rates of Whites and Asians.

Thus, when people complain about the high cost of prisons, remind them it is bargain. A bargain that helps Black and Hispanics (Mexicans) as much or even more than Whites and Asians. Since the primary victims of the much higher per-capita crime rate Black and Hispanic populations are their own communities. Indeed, looking at the social costs of gang related murders, one can easily see why they help perpetuate poverty inside the barrio and ghetto. Costly though it might be, and painful to contemplate, an argument could be made to Black and Hispanic ghetto and barrio residents that locking up their nephews is better than burying their sons. And that the only way to prevent the latter is to do the former.

Of course, that's an indictment of the single-mother dominated ghetto and barrio's ability to enforce social norms (don't murder). And admitting that the problem requires a mostly White police and prison system to lock up fairly closely related relatives to save your own son. So it is unlikely to be a very successful argument. No one likes to see relatives imprisoned.

But the larger White (and Asian) population that pay the majority of taxes, will see the logic.

Its ALWAYS about the money. Always.

And the savings from constructing a massive prison system in a "diverse" and multicultural society are enormous. If anything, America has too few prisons, and too few prisoners. Both are a bargain at twice the cost.