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Example research essay topic: Violent Crime Illegal Drugs - 1,646 words

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... d by one of your victims. That risk you can increase as much as you want, at least up to the point where you actually do get killed. The more valuable money is to you, the greater the risk you are willing to take to get more of it. [ 12 ] Generalizing the argument, we observe that an increase in the value of money to the worker will result in a greater increase in output in some activities than others.

If violent crime happens to be an activity which people shift into when money becomes more valuable to them, or if people who consume illegal drugs happen to be people who in any case support themselves by violent crime, we would expect increased expenditure by consumers of drugs to lead to an increase in violent crime. Under such circumstances, the effect of increased drug prohibition on violent crime depends on the elasticity of demand for the prohibited drugs. If demand is elastic increasing the price results in a decrease in expenditure, hence a decrease in violent crime. If demand is inelastic increasing the price results in an increase in expenditure, hence an increase in violent crime. [ 13 ] A further point worth mentioning is the relation between the cost of drugs and the value of leisure. Most forms of drug use tend to reduce productivity in most income earning activities. [ 14 ] Most ways of earning an income tend to reduce the pleasure from consuming most drugs. Hence there is a tendency for drug use to be a leisure time activity.

To the extent that it is, lowering the price of drugs increases the value of leisure to drug users and so reduces their willingness to trade leisure for income. If the user happens to be a mugger, that means less time spent mugging people. This effect strengthens the argument in the case where drug demand is inelastic. If stricter enforcement drives up the price of a drug, consumers spend more money on the drug, increasing their need for money and willingness to work, and have less of the drug, decreasing their enjoyment from leisure time. Both effects result in more muggings if the user happens to be a mugger. The effect weakens the argument in the case where drug demand is elastic, since then increased enforcement reduces the need for money but also the value of leisure.

What about the effect of efforts to reduce the demand for illegal drugs, whether by arresting consumers, providing treatment programs, or legalizing substitutes? A reduction in demand should unambiguously reduce user violence, whether it comes as a side effect of drug use or as a means of obtaining money to pay for drugs. Violence by Distributors Violent crime due to distributors of illegal drugs might occur through at least three different mechanisms: Violence associated with attempts to steal and defend valuable assets, such as cash and drugs, violence associated with dispute resolution, and violent competition for territory. The first case is the easiest.

Suppose increased enforcement drives up the cost of drugs to distributors. The price of drugs rises. If demand for drugs is inelastic, total expenditure on drugs goes up; if demand is elastic, it goes down. The total value of drugs and cash held by people in the distribution industry will be roughly proportional to the total value of drugs being sold.

The amount of violence associated with attempts to seize and protect those drugs and cash will be an increasing function of their value. So we would expect violence due to this mechanism to increase with increased enforcement effort if the demand for drugs is inelastic, and decrease with increased enforcement effort if the demand for drugs is elastic. The conclusion becomes more complicated if we consider alternative forms of prohibition effort. Suppose, for example, that almost all of the effort is devoted to preventing the import of illegal drugs; once the drugs are inside the country, domestic dealers are free to do as they like with only minimal risk of arrest. Since there is little risk, there is little reason to devote effort to concealing activities from the police or minimizing the amount of evidence lying around. But the relatively open nature of the illegal activity should make it easier for other criminals to observe it and attempt to profit by hijacking drugs and cash.

Now imagine that law enforcement switches its effort from import to distribution, while keeping the overall effect, as measured by the street price of drugs, unchanged. Drug dealers become more careful, drug hijacking is reduced, associated violence falls. Finally, imagine that law enforcement itself goes into the hijacking business, via civil forfeiture, it has done on a large scale in the U. S. The incentive to take precautions became's even higher for the drug distributors, and the amount of hijacking and violence (not counting violence by or against law enforcement agents) decreases. There is one more factor that remains to be considered. [ 15 ] For private protection of property as for public protection, the preferred outcome is not conflict but deterrence.

If I can persuade all potential hijackers that if they try to steal from me they will die, nobody will try to steal from me and nobody will be killed. In a well functioning private system, as in a well functioning public system, people are protected mostly by the threat of violence rather than by actual violence. How well such a system works depends to a considerable extent on the stability of the industry; the longer my firm is in business, the more opportunities it has to create commitment strategies and build a reputation. Hence to the extent that enforcement strategies successfully target and destroy well established criminal firms, increasing the instability of the industry, they are likely to shift private protection from threat to violence, increasing the total amount of violent crime. So far I have been considering violence associated with attempts to seize and protect property unprotected by the law. What about violence associated with ordinary business disputes the sort of disputes that, in other industries, end up being settled by courts or private arbitration?

Here again, we would expect (as Jeffrey Miron has suggested) that law enforcement efforts that reduce the stability of the industry and increase the information costs of its members in dealing with each other would tend to increase violence. We would also expect violence to increase with the amount at stake in such disputes. One determinant ought to be the total value of drugs being sold, since at least some disputes will be associated with such transactions; to that extent the conclusion will be the same as in the previous case. A second determinant might well be the total profit of the industry, [ 16 ] since profits are what are at stake in some contract disputes, such as disagreements over market sharing agreements, or mergers, or the like.

Enforcement effort aimed at the import of drugs should raise the input cost of the industry, hence unambiguously reduce profits. Enforcement effort aimed at preventing small scale production, on the other hand, and especially production by consumers for their own use, [ 17 ] may well result in increasing the demand for the services provided by the drug distribution industry, and thus increasing profits. Enforcement efforts directed against the distribution industry itself have somewhat more ambiguous results. To the extent that they simply raise costs, they can be expected to reduce profits. Suppose, however, that enforcement has a much larger effect on new entrants to the industry, who have not yet built up the necessary network of trust and expertise and the necessary portfolio of corrupt police officers and judges, than on existing firms. In that case it might increase profits, just as a tax on new construction of housing might increase the revenue of apartment owners by more than it increased their costs.

If so, it might also increase the amount at stake in contract disputes and the associated violence. On the other hand, since such enforcement would tend to reduce industry turnover, it might also reduce violence for reasons discussed earlier. Third and last, consider the possibility that, for some illegal drugs, the usual industry structure consists of local distribution monopolies, and that the violence associated with distribution is a form of rent seeking as firms compete for territory turf wars. In that scenario, anything that decreases industry profits ought to decrease the stakes in such conflicts and so decrease the amount of violence. Hence we would again expect to see increased effort against imports associated with reduced violence and increased effort against home production associated with increased violence. [Add formal mathematical treatment of equilibrium here, a la monopolistic competition with violent conflict included? ] What about increased enforcement effort against the distribution network? Here again, the conclusion is ambiguous.

On the one hand, such effort should make distribution less profitable, reducing violence. On the other hand, the violence is a conflict over monopoly profit, and the degree of monopoly may well depend, among other things, on the level of enforcement. One major source of economies of scale in the industry of distributing illegal drugs may be corruption and owning your own police chief or judge is more valuable the more energetic the enforcement that he protects you against. [ 18 ] [More analysis needed here? ] What about the effect on violence by distributors of policies that reduce the demand for illegal drugs? Here again, the effect appears to be unambiguous.

Reductions in demand reduce revenue and reduce profit, hence should reduce violence via any of the mechanisms I have discussed. Violence in Enforcing Prohibition Violence may be due to drug consumers, it may be due to drug distributors fighting among themselves or with other criminals. It may also be due to conflicts b...


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Research essay sample on Violent Crime Illegal Drugs

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