Mainstreaming Methodology for Estimating Costs of Crime
To illustrate the process of building cost of crime estimates for a country we report here some of the results from piloting in the context of Poland. The piloting work followed the strategy as we have outlined it on this site. Many of the issues faced in the Polish context, particularly incompleteness of data, will recur in many other countries where costs of crime estimates have not been made previously, or are unavailable in the public domain.
1. Articulating objectives. We assume that the primary purpose of the estimates is for use within Poland by criminal justice policy makers or others with an interest in costs of crime estimates. The estimates need to be suitable for purposes of appraisal and economic evaluation of criminal justice interventions.
2. Classification of offence types. As a consequence of the objective identified, we decide to stick largely to Polish definitions and classifications of crime. These differ significantly from the classification used in England & Wales, having more in common with the German approach.
3. Data audit. A review of Polish data sources revealed the absence of a major national crime victim survey such as the British Crime Survey or the NCVS in the US. However Poland does contribute to the ICVS with the result that there are data on the incidence of many of the major crimes against individuals and households. A new sweep of data is conducted each four years or so. The latest data available refer to 2004. In order to estimate the relationship between incidence as estimated in ICVS and Polish recorded crime data from the Police web site, the recorded crime data for the corresponding time period were collected. A comparison of data from the two sources revealed a gap, with the recorded crime figures being significantly below the level to be expected on the basis of survey responses, even when adjusted for whether respondents said thet had reported the offence. For cost estimation purposes we use the survey data for estimating victim costs but the recorded crime (and convictions) data when estimating costs to the criminal justice system. There was no sign of any data to indicate how police or other agencies split their time between agencies but there were data on the proportion of offenders receiving various sentences for each offence type. One particular complication was widespread use of suspended prison sentences. These are potentially a cheap sanction but not if large numbers of offenders are reconvicted before a suspended sentence is completed.
4. Transferability. The ICVS data could be used to make estimates of property losses but were not sufficiently detailed to enable estimates of the distribution of injury profiles or the associated victim losses and health treatment costs. There was some information on the scale of harm to victims because Polish law distinguishes more serious assaults (with effects lasting more than seven days) from more minor assaults (where the effects last less than seven days). By making assumptions about reporting rates for injuries of differing severity, and about the severity of injury relative to the England & Wales level, it is possible to derive some estimates of the QALY loss associated with injury. WHO data (and estimates) on the values of a QALY across countries can in turn be used to make estimates of the financial equivalent of the losses resulting from criminal injuries in Poland.
5. The investigation continues.
