Crime steals from your pocketbook

Add comment June 18th, 2008

The first question when we broke into small groups during last night’s Community Viewpoints Board meeting was “How has crime affected you.”

“It’s raised my taxes,” Joyce Higgins said.

How true. Even if you haven’t been a direct victim of a robbery or burglary you still pay the price. Not only do our tax dollars go to pay for police patrols and administration costs, we have that 1 cent jail tax to support Winnebago County’s College for Criminals, among other things.

Later, when we gathered as a big group again, Ben Holmstrom asked whether we’d complain about our taxes if the local crime rate was more like Naperville’s.  If we saw value in how the tax dollars were spent, would we be as concerned about how much we paid?

What do you think?
Community Viewpoints Board members have their own blog, “Viewpoints Board.” Check it out to read what they think.