Vol. 7, No. 1, 2001 Page 7 |
"As criminals acquire an estimated $603 billion dollars worth of assets
from their victims, they generate an additional $1,102 billion worth of
lost productivity, crime-related expenses, and diminished quality of life.
The net losses represent an annual per capita burden of $4,118. Including
transfer, the aggregate burden of crime is $1,705 billion. In the United
States, this is of the same order of magnitude as life insurance purchases
($1,680 billion), the outstanding mortgage debt to commercial banks and
savings institutions ($1,853 billion), and annual expenditures on health
($1,038 billion)."
David A. Anderson on "The
Aggregate Burden of Crime," in the
Journal of Law and Economics,
October 1999.