I see that many people feel that not enough capital is being invested into social welfare policies, education, healthcare and so on. I think that the majority of people fail to recognize the impact of crime on these programs and institutions. The world bank has recognized that violent crime has cost Latin America thirty billion dollars a year.
Crime erodes the development of human capital, with direct costs are quite visible in education.
Another visible cost is the strain on emergency and rehabilitation services. This takes away from other services that hold the fabric of a society together. Crime is just one of the many conflicts that has to be defined and then resolved.