New York, during the year 1899, paid from the public treasury for items
wholly due to crime the sum of $12,988,804. Then he mentioned many
other expenditures which were partly chargeable to crime aggregating
$7,889,259, making a total of $20,778,083. In comparing these figures
with the population of New York, Mr. Smith concluded that crime in the
American metropolis cost the people about $6 per capita annually. In
San Francisco it ran about $5 per capita, and in other cities mentioned
from $3 to $3.50 per capita. The excess in New York and San Francisco,
was partly explained from the fact, that the figures quoted included
county taxation.
The speaker then gave comprehensive statements, from which he gathered
conclusions as to the cost of crime in the rural districts, adding
that a very conservative estimate would be $1.00 per capita per year.
Estimating that the present population of the country was 75,000,000
and that 40 per cent. lived in cities of above 8,000 inhabitants,
he placed the total cost of crime at $150,000,000 per year. To this
he added $50,000,000 from federal and State taxes, making the total
$200,000,000 per year.
These figures, said Mr. Smith, inaccurate as they may seem to be,
prove that crime is by far the largest factor with which political
economy has to deal. The only other item of expense that comes near to
it is the maintainance of the public schools, which for the same year
aggregate about $139,000,000. But the enormous expenditure mentioned is
only for the prevention of crime.
The city of New York expends each year an enormous sum for maintaining
its fire department, but that is not the only expense caused through
the existence of fires. No possible statistics can be compiled to give
an estimate for the cost of property stolen and the suffering caused by
crime.
These facts are real, not estimated.