Mainstreaming Methodology for Estimating Costs of Crime
The main purpose of making estimates of the costs of crime is to provide one of the key inputs for criminal justice policy analysis. The Policy Tools section demonstrates how some of the main tools work and how they make use of cost of crime estimates. This section sets out some examples of how these tools are applied in practice.
In addition to the topics listed on the side-bar menu, and outlined briefly below, there are some important areas of offending to which cost of crime methodology can be applied, but in an adapted format:
In a brief review of Costs of drug misuse we show how analysts have combined information about drug misuse and the costs of the types of offences associated with drug misuse.
In a recent paper Bowles (in Faure & Stephen (Eds.) (2008) "The impact of costs of crime methodology on criminal justice policy") gives a brief discussion of how analysts can make use of cost estimates for standard offence types to inform discussion of the costs of terrorism.
We turn now to the topics listed on the side menu.
Many studies use cost benefit analysis to compare the costs of intervention (typically implemented in the form of pilot projects) with project benefits. Cost of crime estimates are used in these studies as the basis for measuring the value of the crime reduction effects a project delivers. Our illustration is based on applications in the field of Situational Crime Prevention. The basic question these kinds of studies address is: "Is it worth spending on a project that prevents X offences at a cost of a certain number of Euros?"
Another important use of cost of crime estimates is in the modelling of criminal justice policy. The application presented here is based on the choice between detaining suspects charged with an offence and releasing them on bail. Bail decisions generally reflect a balancing of the risks of offending by those released on bail and the savings in imprisonment costs that bail enables. Cost of crime estimates enable the risks of offending to be expressed in monetary terms so that they can be compared directly with other monetised costs such as those of imprisonment. Our illustration is based on the question: "Will increasing the proportion of suspects released on bail add more to the costs of crime committed than it saves in other ways?"
The use of cost of crime estimates to 'value' sequences of offences or sections of criminal careers is another of the emerging areas of application. Interventions with children and young people designed to divert them from a criminal career potentially have a high future pay-off. Estimating the value of these pay-offs requires the summing of estimates of the costs of criminal careers in the form of 'bundles' of offences.
Another area of application with some similarities to the previous two examples is the assessment of the costs and benefits of sentencing decisions. The choices judges make between different types of sentence (for example imprisonment versus a community-based punishment) reflect a trade-off between the properties of the alternative disposals. The value of crime prevention effects resulting from the incapacitation of offenders (which of course requires cost of crime estimates) has to be weighed against the costs of imprisonment. Put more crudely cost of crime estimates help estimate the value of the public protection effects of imprisonment.
