Mainstreaming Methodology for Estimating Costs of Crime
Individuals arrested and charged with an offence may either be remanded (detained) in prison or released on bail while awaiting a court hearing of their case. Cost of crime considerations may influence the bail decisions taken by the police or courts.
The factors to be taken into account when reaching these decisions are set out in legislation. Courts will normally have a degree of discretion as to how to resolve the tension between detaining a person who is presumed innocent and releasing them with the risk that they may fail to appear for trial and/or commit further offences while on bail. Both options have their risks and costs. Cost of crime estimates can make a significant contribution to such discussions by helping elucidate the terms of trade-offs.
From a policy modelling perspective the ‘benefits of release on bail’ can be summarised as the sum of four components, namely: gain to suspect from release, imprisonment cost savings, the costs of crime while released and the cost of re-apprehension. Cost of crime estimates can be used in conjunction with estimates of the various behavioural parameters of the model (e.g. the proportion committing offences while on bail) to make estimates of the returns to a policy of widening (or narrowing) the use of bail. [link to Bowles/Cohen model..]
Once a model of this type has been constructed it could be used, inter alia, to explore the effects of changes in bail policy on the size of the prison population.
