A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF SPECIAL PURPOSE LOCAL OPTION SALES TAXES AND SOCIAL INDICATORS OF CRIME ACROSS WASHINGTON COUNTIES

Abstract

The 19th century witnessed an unprecedented urbanization trend that increased the density and synergy of communal networks, social behaviors, and interjurisdictional legislative policies, thereby deeply reshaping social science research. Crime, once thought to stem purely from an individual’s malevolent disposition, was rediscovered as an articulation of social disfunction. Criminological research has repetitively linked social disfunction in America with the competitive nature of urbanization, where the obsessive pursuit of success meets an environment with a finite amount of resources. Competition is also at the heart of modern tax policy, especially insofar as local governments are concerned. A modern American phenomenon termed ‘devolution’ causes federal and state governments to mandate that counties and cities provide a standard package of social services with little or no financial support, thus forcing horizontally equivalent local jurisdictions to compete against each other for tax revenue. Washington counties have not escaped the national pressure to compete. As a state that relies heavily on sales taxes, tax competition in Washington has become fierce, particularly at the local government level in the form of Local Option Sales Taxes (LOST) and Special Purpose Local Option Sales Taxes (SPLOST). Applying lessons from criminological and tax research, the study examines a 29-year history of social variables to understand how urbanization has shaped the socioeconomic structure of Washington counties and whether competition for tax revenue advances the legislative intent of two Washington SPLOSTs, one earmarked for criminal justice and the other for juvenile detention facilities. The study finds that a county’s propensity to impose either SPLOST is not significantly correlated with any observed measure of crime or social predictor of crime. Under the demagogic guise of criminal justice, tax policy seems informed solely by pecuniary factors: population, income, and economic activity. Results from statistical analyses based on 29 years of social trends in Washington counties indicate that millions of dollars spent annually to augment police staffing, judicial bandwidth, and jail space were not effective at preventing crime. The study results further suggest that these funds could have been much more effective at preventing crime if used to ensure that every Washington child (a) eats, (b) learns English in order to have wider access to educational and employment opportunities, and (c) graduates from college.