Crime doesn’t pay. Well, that all depends.

Some of my best friends are unemployed. Hell, most of my friends are unemployed, and unemployable. In an effort to assist these lost souls, I have reviewed “Careers in Crime,” a career guide for criminals. This guide (by Michael Weinberg, $12.99, McMeel Press) is vital in a time when half the country seems to be unemployed, or about to be.

In an effort to help his countrymen, Weinberg took a break from his “real” job at Jobs Rated Almanac, and applied his training and technique to investigate a life of crime.

You know you’ve thought about it. Admit it.

For your convenience, Weinberg has rated all the crimes he could think of from drug counterfeiter (B+) to prison wife (D+). This is all that information that the guidance counselor omitted from your senior interview.

If you were successful in those pesky chemistry and science labs in high school and college, then drug counterfeiting may be the career for you.

Talk about big business. In 2003, the World Health Organization estimated global sales of phony prescription drugs at $35 billion. In Nigeria and Pakistan, counterfeit drugs are estimated at 40 percent to 50 percent of the market. Viagra and Cialis sales are rising across the world, naturally.

“The secondary pharmaceutical market is a $126 billion behemoth, presenting outstanding opportunities for ethically flexible individuals and organizations,” Weinberg said. And in most cases, infractions are treated as misdemeanors.

We can assume you have eliminated “prison wife” from your job search, so we will move on to “hit man,” which rated a gentleman’s C from Weinberg, despite the traditionally glamorous treatment from Hollywood.

While compensation and rewards from this occupation rated a B-, the enforcement and stiff penalties dragged it down to a solid D. Contract killing is said to represent only 2 percent of all homicides, but it can be lucrative. I cannot imagine how they conducted it, but an Australian survey in 2003 reported an average hit price at $16,500 but ranges as high as $50,000.

Prices can vary. Yves “Mad Bumper” Trudeau, a Hells Angels assassin, testified that he got $200,00 for a double murder. But Canadian biker Cory Patterson killed a whole family of Korean grocers for a mere $2,000 and even offered a payment plan.

Murder for hire, while offering a spectacular hourly rate, “is a technically demanding profession in which even small errors can result in irreparable nonloss of life. [Hit persons] may find themselves on call at inopportune hours or could be compelled to accept unpleasant or ill-advised assignments,” Weinberg reports.

I always thought bank robbery would be a good part-time, if not full-time, profession. Ending the day with a big pile of cash would be most satisfying. But Weinberg gives it a mere C-. Although it is a $70 million annual operation, the individual take is a measly $8,000, hardly enough to risk a 20-year jail sentence. If you have a driver and a lookout, you are talking take-home pay of $2,666. I could blow that in an hour on Amazon.com.

Plus, police take bank robbery very seriously, especially if you hit a branch where their money is resting. While garden-variety robbery has a national clearance rate of only 25 percent, bank robberies rack up a 60 percent rate. “Only murderers face bleaker prospects of success,” Weinberg reports, giving the field a C- for arrests and another C- for sentencing.

Other highly ranked and recommended criminal careers are cigarette smuggler, organ broker, identity thief and telemarketer scammer.

The lowly ranked crimes, just above prison wife, are meth lab operator (work-related explosions, fires and inhalation of toxins), prostitute, gangbanger, mercenary and kidnapper.

All right. The criminal life sounds too perilous, plus the danger of that prison wife thing. I will advise my unemployed friends that stocking shelves at the IGA is not all that bad a prospect.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.