Mainstreaming Methodology for Estimating Costs of Crime
Forensic methods such as fingerprinting and DNA evidence gathering are critical methods for identifying offenders. They can be very costly however and are not routinely used for minor crimes. They represent a good illustration of the limits to application (at present) of cost-benefit methodology in the criminal justice field. It is possible to run experiments to establish how effective forensic techniques are in helping the police identify offenders. But it is much more difficult to identify the scale of the impact they have on the volume of crime being committed. Without an estimate of the number of crimes prevented there is no scope to apply cost of crime estimates as a measure of intervention benefits.
As an interim step the analyst can, however, apply cost effectiveness analysis. A study of the value of DNA evidence gathering has been conducted in the US. It does not quite apply standard cost effectiveness analysis, so we have added a note explaining what such an analysis might look like.
A somewhat similar limitation attaches to the appraisal of other major hi-tech investments in criminal justice. The use of biometric identity documents and of improved IT systems that enable quicker searches of criminal justice databases are good examples where it is quite difficult to assemble compelling evidence about the scale (and thus the value) of benefits in crime prevention effects (or whatever effects) to be expected from major capital investment programmes.
