Notes

2 Ibid., p. 25. back

3 Bureau of Justice Statistics, Technical Report, Lifetime Likelihood of Victimization, March 1987, NCJ-104274, p. 2. back

4 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States, 1993, p. 4. back

5 Ibid. back

6 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States, 1993, p. 58.back

7 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, 1994 Preliminary Annual Release, May 21, 1995.back

8 The U.S. Department of Justice administers two statistical programs to measure the magnitude, nature and impact of crime in the nation: the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program and the NCVS. The UCR data, which includes the FBI Index of Crime, are compiled from monthly law enforcement reports made directly to the FBI or to state agencies which then report to the FBI. The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ NCVS collects detailed information on crimes from a nationally representative sample of approximately 49,000 households. A basic reason for two statistical programs is that only a minority of crimes " fewer than four in 10 " are reported to the police. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, 1993, pp. 385-86. back

9 Also see Bureau of Justice Statistics, Special Report, Reporting Crimes to the Police, December 1985, NCJ-99432. back

10 See Itzhak Goldberg and Frederick C. Nold, - Does Reporting Deter Burglars? " An Empirical Analysis of Risk and Return in Crime," Review of Economics and Statistics, 62, August 1980, pp. 424-31. back

11 Stanton Samenow, a criminal psychologist and interviewer of thousands of criminals, insists, "The criminal is rational, calculating and deliberate in his actions. Criminals know right from wrong. ... A habit is not a compulsion. On any occasion, the thief can refrain from stealing if he is in danger of being caught." In Robert James Bidinotto, ed., Criminal Justice? The Legal System Versus Individual Responsibility (Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: Foundation for Economic Education, 1994), p. 48.back

12 John J. DiIulio Jr., "White Lies About Black Crime," The Public Interest, No. 118, Winter 1995, pp. 30-44; James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia, eds., Crime (San Francisco, CA: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1995), p. 507. back

13 As UCLA management professor James Q. Wilson wrote, "The average citizen thinks it is obvious that people discovered it is easier to get away with it." James Q. Wilson, Thinking About Crime, rev. ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. 117. back

14 "The risks posed by the criminal enforcement system are notoriously low," wrote economist Kip Viscusi, "and data show that youthful criminals know it." W. Kip Viscusi, - The Risks and Rewards of Criminal Activity: A Comprehensive Test of Criminal Deterrence, - Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1986, pp. 317-40. back

15 Ibid. See also the earlier surveys of the literature in Gordon Tullock, "Does Punishment Deter Crime?" The Public Interest, Vol. 36, Summer 1974, pp. 103-11; Morgan O. Reynolds, Crime by Choice (Dallas: Fisher Institute, 1985), ch. 12; Donald E. Lewis, "The General Deterrent Effect of Longer Sentences," British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 26, January 1986, pp. 47-62; Samuel Cameron, "The Economics of Crime Deterrence: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Kyklos, 41, 1988, pp. 301-23; Bidinotto, ed., Criminal Justice? The Legal System Versus Individual Responsibility; and Steven D. Levitt, Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime, - National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, Working Paper No. 4991, January 1995. back

16 Morgan O. Reynolds, - Why Does Crime Pay?” NCPA Policy Backgrounder No. 110, National Center for Policy Analysis, November 6, 1992, p. 3. back

17 The criminal justice probabilities shown in Table II are available only for the late 1980s and 1990 and then only for 11 states. Fortunately, we do not need such detail to calculate expected punishment. We require only three numbers for each type of crime: (1) the number of new convicts the courts sent to federal and state prisons for those crimes, (2) the number of those crimes reported to the police and (3) the median prison time served by those released from prison. Mathematically, the percentage of crimes cleared by arrest multiplied by the ratio of prosecutions to arrests multiplied by the ratio of convictions to prosecutions multiplied by the ratio of those sent to prison to total convictions equals the ratio of new prisoners to number of crimes, that is, the probability of prison. Reasonable approximations for these data are available in selected years all the way back to 1950, while the more abundant 1985-92 data allow quite precise calculation of expected punishment. back

18 Average time served is calculated by adding all the time served for Index crimes and dividing by the number of crimes reported. Median time served is calculated by arranging the time served in order from shortest to longest; the median is the middle value, with half below and half above. back

19 All of these numbers increase slightly if the jail time served by prisoners is added to state prison time served. back

20 Robert E. McCormick and Robert D. Tollison, "Crime on the Court," Journal of Political Economy, 92, April 1984, pp. 223-35. back

21 Levitt, "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime." back

22 Houston Chronicle, January 26, 1995, p. 23A. back

23 Anne Morrison Piehl and John J. DiIulio Jr., "Does Prison Pay? Revisited," The Brookings Review, Winter 1995, pp. 21-25. back

24 Prisons, however, do not pay for themselves with many drug offenders, who have grown to 30 percent of new state prisoners, up from 7 percent in 1980. There is no social benefit for incarcerating drug dealers, according to Piehl and DiIulio, because they are readily replaced in the drug marketplace. Hence, the researchers calculate that prisons cannot pass a cost-benefit test for about one in four prisoners. back

25 Stephen Klein and Michael Caggiano, Policy Implications and Recidivism (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1986); and Joan Petersilia et al., Prison Versus Probation (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1986). back

26 U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1988, p. 658. back

27 Allen Beck, Recidivism of Young Parolees (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1987). Also see "The Case for More Incarceration," Office of Policy Development, U.S. Department of Justice, in Bidinotto, ed., Criminal Justice? The Legal System Versus Individual Responsibility back

. 28 Quoted in Bidinotto, ed., Criminal Justice? The Legal System Versus Individual Responsibility, p. 214. Also see George Allen, "The Courage of Our Convictions: The Abolition of Parole Will Save Lives and Money," Policy Review, Spring 1995, pp. 4-7. back

29 Gary W. Bowman, Simon Hakim and Paul Seidenstat, eds., Privatizing Correctional Institutions (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1993). back

30 For a comparison of the quality of private and public prisons, see Charles H. Logan, “Well Kept: Comparing Quality of Confinement in Private and Public Prisons, - in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 83, No. 3, Fall 1992, pp. 577-613. In a comparison of privately and publicly operated corrections facilities in Kentucky and Massachusetts, both staff and inmates generally gave higher ratings to the services and programs at the privately operated facilities, where escape rates also were lower and disturbances fewer. See Dana C. Joel, "The Privatization of Secure Adult Prisons: Issues and Evidence," in Bowman, Hakim and Seidenstat, eds., Privatizing Correctional Institutions. back

31 Benson, The Enterprise of Law, p. 345. back

32 Author’s telephone conversation with office of Charles W. Thomas, Director, Private Corrections Project, Center for Studies in Criminology and Law, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, March 1995; also see Charles W. Thomas, "The Transformation of Correctional Privatization from a Novel Experiment Into a Proven Alternative," presentation at the National Convention of the American Legislative Exchange Council, Tampa, FL, August 4, 1994. back

33 Wall Street Journal, June 10, 1993, p. B2. back

34 CCA offered to operate the entire prison system for the state of Tennessee in the 1980s, but the state government declined the proposal. See Bowman, Hakim and Seidenstat, eds., Privatizing Correctional Institutions, p. 29. back

35 Charles H. Logan, Private Prisons: Cons and Pros (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). back

36 Author’s telephone conversation with CCA Program Director, Houston, TX, March 14, 1995. back

37 Ibid. For the hidden costs of public corrections, see Charles H. Logan and Bill W. McGriff, "Comparing Costs of Public and Private Prisons: A Case Study," National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, No. 216, September/October 1989. back

38 Alexis M. Durham, "The Future of Correctional Privatization: Lessons From the Past," in Bowman, Hakim and Seidenstat, eds., Privatizing Correctional Institutions, p. 39.back

39 Barbara Auerbach, "Federal Government Involvement in Private Sector Partnerships in Prison Industries," in Bowman, Hakim and Seidenstat, eds., Privatizing Correctional Institutions, pp. 91-104. back

40 Bruce Fein and Edwin Meese III, "Have to Fight Crime Within Our Limited Means," Houston Chronicle, May 3, 1989, p. 29A. back

41 James K. Stewart, Director, National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, in a letter to the Wall Street Journal, July 26, 1989. back

42 See Jack Eckerd, “Responsibility, Love and Privatization: A Businessman’s Guide to Criminal Rehabilitation,- Policy Review, 45, Summer 1988, p. 52; and Judith Schloegel, "PRIDE of Florida: A Working Model for Inmates," in Bowman, Hakim and Seidenstat, eds., Privatizing Correctional Institutions, pp. 105-11. PRIDE is an acronym for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises. back

43 Andrew Peyton Thomas, Crime and the Sacking of America (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994), p. 121. back

44 Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program, Quarterly Report, American Correctional Association, Laurel, MD, March 1, 1995. back

45 Business Week, February 17, 1992, p. 42. back

46 "Governor Praises Heatron, Zephyr," Leavenworth (KS) Times, October 7, 1992, p. A1. back

47 See also Rod Miller, George E. Sexton and Victor J. Jacobsen, "Making Jails Productive," National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, NCJ-132396, October 1991; and "Private Sector Prison Industries" and "Prison-Based Joint Ventures," both by Criminal Justice Associates, Philadelphia, PA, December 7, 1990. back

48 For more ideas on privatization, see Morgan O. Reynolds, "Using the Private Sector to Deter Crime," NCPA Policy Report No. 181, March 1994. back