Thursday, January 15, 2009

Police solve six percent of Sweden's crimes

Police solve six percent of Sweden's crimes:

Nearly 95 percent of violent crimes and robberies committed in Sweden go unsolved, and an individual police officer solves an average of three crimes per year, according to a recent analysis.


Can someone remind me why we need a monopoly on security forces that are forcibly funded through tax revenue? Why do people complain that without "police" we would have rampant crime? Sweden's police are quite clearly not performing the task they are assigned with. Why? Because they are at no risk of losing their revenue based on the quality (or lack thereof) of the service they provide. Nor are they at risk of losing market share to any competition (except competition from criminals it seems). The same principles apply to all services in all societies.

Why do we think that we need to monopolize something in order to guarantee its performance? This is exactly backwards thinking. If we want to starve, then we should make all our farms state-run and monopolized. If we want rampant crime, then we should monopolize our security services and fund them through tax dollars.

But if we want to eat well and be safe in our homes, then the LAST thing we should do is monopolize these things and fund them through taxes, essentially disconnecting the revenue received from the quality of the product or service provided. And until we cease monopolization of essential services like security, we will continue to see 6% crime solving rates as well as innocent men being shot in the back at train stations.

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