That's as much as the rest of the world combined. But it is going to go up. The military's present mission is to have the capacity to fight two Gulf Wars at once, on opposite sides of the world, without allies. So, with the Republican Congress in there now, look for new military spending authorizations that will jack up military spending past Bush's last projections. Under Clinton's deficit reduction plan, any money added to the military budget must be subtracted from domestic programs.
Street crime goes up when economic distress goes up and goes down when economic opportunity goes up.
That's more than the military budget of any other country in the world. Prison construction is the only growth industry left in many areas. We need an independent left that will expose the insanity of these militarized spending priorities. Instead of cops and jails, we need jobs and justice. We need to abolish poverty, not the Bill of Rights.