Chapter 13 – Crime and Drugs

13

Crime and Drugs

Purpose

In this chapter, we wanted to examine crime prevention as a public good, cost-benefit analysis as a tool for evaluating public policy, and the legalization of a victimless crime. We chose drugs as the arguably victimless crime on the basis that students are more interested in drugs than abortion, prostitution, or most other examples. We have avoided the marginal benefits equal marginal cost framework for policy evaluation on the basis that it is very abstract and confusing to students, as well as unnecessary at this level.

Learning Objectives

Our learning objectives for this chapter are:

1.to enable the student to recognize a public good.

2.to acquaint the student with cost-benefit analysis.

3.to enable the student to understand the economic argument for legalizing “victimless crimes”.

4.to enable the student to understand the economic argument against legalizing so-called victimless crimes.

5.to illustrate the conservative and liberal viewpoints on crime and its prevention.

Lecture Suggestions

  • Students often believe that any additional expenditures on crime prevention are good, so we must emphasize the idea of opportunity cost with them.
  • Look at the competition for state funding between corrections, Medicaid, and education. Find data for these programs for your state and trace the changes in recent years. This is a good way to elaborate on opportunity cost, as mentioned in the suggestion above.
  • When discussing public goods, look at the way the definition is often stretched in our society. Ask the students if roads, fire protection, parks, and libraries have the characteristics of public goods.
  • Discuss the government’s taking responsibility for the provision of the public good vs. the government’s actually producing the public good.
  • The material on the legalization of drugs is controversial and for some students highly emotional. So be very careful not to stifle discussion. Ask, “Is there such a thing as a victimless crime?”
  • Ask the students to read the police reports in their local newspapers to see what crimes are of local concern. In our small college town, underage drinking, marijuana possession, shop-lifting, and domestic abuse seem to dominate the news.
  • Ask the students if they participated in project DARE or other anti-drug programs. Then ask if they think the programs were effective.

Additional Discussion Questions

Some of the following discussion questions may be useful in preparing lectures.

1.Which of the following are public goods? Do some people seem to use a broader definition than others?

a.fire protection

b.libraries

c.roads

d.education

2.Does the government necessarily have to actually produce public goods, or should it just see that they are provided?

3.Show the effect of legalizing drugs on a demand and supply graph. What would happen to usage and price? (Some students really want to argue that there would be less usage under legalization, so be sure to emphasize that both the increase in demand and the increase in supply would increase usage.)

  1. Below are two hypothetical demand curves for cocaine.

a.Which demand curve would more likely reflect the demand of people who are addicted to the drug, and which would reflect the demand of casual users?

  1. In which case would legalizing cocaine cause the largest increase in its use?
  2. What are the implications if the conclusions above for society?

5.Show the effect of the government taxing legalized marijuana $1 per bag on the supply curve below.

6.On the production possibilities curve below, show that our increased resources allocated to crime prevention implies a movement from a point such as A to one such as B. Discuss the forces in society that would cause us to make such a choice. Once again, discuss the opportunity cost.

Critical Thinking Question

Critically evaluate the argument for decriminalizing marijuana. Will your analysis be different if you uncover evidence that marijuana is a “gateway drug”?

INTERNET RESOURCES

(The FBI site has the Uniform Crime Reports.)

(The Sentencing Project is an advocacy group opposing unbridled prison expansion. This site has international incarceration data.)

(This is the site for the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.)