Crime pays -- poorly

Most criminals live a life of poverty, and not because they were poor to begin with. It's just that crime doesn't pay that well. [Sunday Star]

"We have this idea that these guys that work outside system, maybe they've got it right, maybe these people are having a better life than the guy doing 9 to 5 — but most criminals live in poverty," says Cecil Greek, a professor of criminology at Florida State University.

And the reason it doesn't pay well? It's the damn red tape.

Dennis Chevalier, a "forensic investigative psychological criminologist" based in Fort Worth, Tex., says that while there is lots of cash circulating among the criminal element, much of it gets hung up in a kind of underworld bureaucracy. "People aren't getting rich because there are too many people involved," says Chevalier. "There are payments to keep people quiet, there are cops to pay, security guards to pay, you have to pay the people who arranged the selling of the merchandise... There's not a whole lot of people getting rich."