The incentive problem at the heart of the American justice system

From the article:

In police officers per capita, the United States ranks 103 out of 146. This is actually worse than it sounds– most developed countries rank higher on that list, while most of the countries with the fewest police lack either the money to afford them, or lack effective governmental control over much of the country.

Overall, compared to global averages, the United States has an average number of judges and prosecutors, one-third fewer police officers per capita, 2.5 times as many corrections officers per capita, and four times as many prisoners per capita. (Chart #1).

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Since the US has more crime– and more violent crime in particular (not always more property crime), you’d think we’d spend more on our justice system. But actually, not particularly– the US spends about 1.25% of GDP on police and prisons combined, compared to 1.2% in the EU. The breakdown between the two is quite different though– the US spends .75% on police vs .5% on prisons, while the EU spends 1% on police vs .2% on prisons. (Chart #2).

Yes, we have a higher total and per capita GDP so we spend more overall, but that just means cops and guards get paid more, since Americans in general get paid more– we still don’t get more of them unless we spend a greater portion of our GDP on them.

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So, police funded locally, prison funded by the state. That leaves the third leg of the justice system– the courts. Courts are run and funded by local and county governments, again with a tiny bit of state and federal aid. Exactly how this works in terms of judges and district attorneys being elected vs appointed varies, but they’re local entities.

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Now, look at this from the perspective of a local (or county) government. Law enforcement is a better solution, but it costs your money. Prison is an inferior solution, but it costs other people’s money.

And that right there is the central point of this article– the way the US federal system divides up responsibilities between different levels of government produces strong incentives to try and pass the buck by spending some other government’s money, even if your government is the one with the best tools for fighting crime.

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In short, local and county governments have every incentive to under-police and over-sentence, and they do just that. So we’ve answered the question I posed at the beginning of this article– why are we following this strategy that we know is ineffective?