Mainstreaming Methodology for Estimating Costs of Crime
Imposing criminal sanctions is costly, particularly when imprisonment is involved. It is comparatively easy to estimate the costs in a particular case by taking the average monthly cost of keeping someone in prison and multiplying by the length of their sentence, adjusting via a discounting formula for those costs that will be incurred in the future. What makes cost estimation much more difficult is variation (within an offence type) in the length of imprisonment terms or of probation orders. Sentencing guidelines may identify minimum, maximum and average sentence lengths, but variations in the seriousness of an offence, risk of re-offending or offender convictions history and other things will all have an influence.
For a review of the costing methods available see Criminal Sanctions.
Since different agencies may be responsible for the various kinds of sanction it can be helpful to treat them separately. Offenders convicted for a single offence type, say domestic burglary, may be fined, imprisoned or given a community order. The average sanctions cost for the offence thus have to be compiled in pieces from a variety of data sources. For purposes of illustration we consider the principal types of sanction separately:
Probation costs illustration
Fines enforcement costs illustration
Imprisonment costs illustration
