How much wasteful spending on security theater is enough?
Bruce Schneier links to U.S. Representative John Duncanís Congressional observation about the Federal Air Marshals Service:
Actually, there have been many more arrests of Federal air marshals than that story reported, quite a few for felony offenses. In fact, more air marshals have been arrested than the number of people arrested by air marshals.
We now have approximately 4,000 in the Federal Air Marshals Service, yet they have made an average of just 4.2 arrests a year since 2001. This comes out to an average of about one arrest a year per 1,000 employees.
Now, let me make that clear. Their thousands of employees are not making one arrest per year each. They are averaging slightly over four arrests each year by the entire agency.
In other words, we are spending approximately $200 million per arrest.
Let me repeat that: we are spending approximately $200 million per arrest.
One could quibble that spending per arrest is not an entirely fair measure of effectiveness. A good deterrent effect means fewer arrests, right?
Nevertheless, itís a pretty good indication of misdirected resources if a law enforcement agencyís officers are more likely to be arrested than to make arrests.
Wow! Tom, I think you have nailed this one. I am a big fan of Jimmy Duncan, and if we had 100 more people in Congress like Ron Paul and him, we would not be looking at ruinous deficits and runaway spending.
I doubt that if there was really ever a need for an air marshal, like in an instance where there were multiple terrorists on board a plane, that the air marshal alone would be able to control the situation. We’ve seen that better security at the gate, along with a highly aware and alert flying public have prevented post 9/11 terrorist attempts. How much do they pay air marshals, I heard it’s in the 70k to 80k range? It’s time to get control of the expense side of the budget, we need politicians that know how to use a red pen.