Crime and punishment ... is less of both possible?

The subheading to this piece in the Economist says it all, eh:

Spending more on education and private security are cost-effective ways of cutting crime

Of course, we want details:

Why is private security apparently so cost-effective? One reason, says Mr Cook, is simply that guards are paid less than police officers. Another is they are dedicated to a single district and are directly responsible for making it safe. Guards can specialise. They know which shifty characters to look out for and which policing works best in their area. Unlike policemen, they are not called away to supervise a parade or protect a dignitary.

How about the role of education?

Are there ways to prevent people from becoming criminals in the first place? In principle, a lengthier education ought to reduce crime by raising people’s future earning power from legitimate work, making a criminal career less attractive. School also keeps would-be criminals in touch with the right sort of peers and social attitudes. There is plenty of evidence that a lack of education goes hand in hand with criminal behaviour. Studies of America’s jail population in the 1990s showed that most inmates had not finished high school. But few studies have established that less education is actually a cause of crime.

Which is why I joke around that it is better to house people in institutions of higher education than in penal institutions :)  And if we didn't have faculty jobs, some of us would be in yet another type of institution--the mental institutions .... ha ha

But, wait, how my state spends on education versus on corrections is no joke :(

State per capita spending on the Oregon University System has declined 44 percent in the past 15 years while spending for prisons has climbed by 50 percent ...