The Department of Justice, the CIA and the Pentagon are quietly taking an active and coordinated role in marketing defense-related technologies to law enforcement agencies. Efforts to expand this market increase enforcement expenditures, regardless of need or effectiveness. It is politically safe for politicians to attack criminals because nobody likes them and nobody defends them. There is no natural counter-lobby to assert itself against the crime control lobby. Focusing civilian fear on crime is a politically safe distraction from issues like health care or deficit reduction that attract lobbyists from every angle.
Fear of crime is different from crime itself.
To improve our crime policies, we must move perceptions closer to reality. The criminal justice system falls most heavily on minorities. Relative to their populations, there are seven times as many minorities in prison as whites. In many cities, about half of young African American men are under the control of the criminal justice system. In a single year in Los Angeles, one third of the young African American men spend time behind bars.