Costs Of Crime Research Articles

Adolescent Development and the Regulation of Youth Crime

Elizabeth Scott and Laurence Steinberg explore the dramatic changes in the law's conception of young offenders between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. At the dawn of the juvenile court era, they note, most youths were tried and punished as if they were adults. Early juvenile court reformers argued strongly against such a view, believing that the justice system should offer young offenders treatment that would cure them of their antisocial ways. That rehabilitative model of juvenile justice held sway until a sharp upswing in youth violence at the end of the twentieth century led both public opinion and public policy toward a view that youths should be held to the same standard of criminal accountability as adults. Lawmakers seemed to lose sight of developmental differences between adolescents and adults. But Scott and Steinberg note that lawmakers and the public appear now to be rethinking their views once more. A justice system that operates on the principle of "adult time for adult crime" now seems to many to take too little note of age and immaturity in calculating criminal punishment. In 2005 the United States Supreme Court abolished the juvenile death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment, emphasizing that the immaturity of adolescents made them less culpable than adult criminals. In addition, state legislatures recently have repealed or moderated some of the punitive laws they recently enacted. Meanwhile, observe the authors, public anger has abated and attitudes toward young offenders have softened somewhat. In response to these changes, Scott and Steinberg argue that it is appropriate to reexamine juvenile justice policy and to devise a new model for the twenty-first century. In this article, they propose what they call a developmental model. They observe that substantial new scientific evidence about adolescence and criminal activity by adolescents provides the building blocks for a new legal regime superior to today's policy. They put adolescent offenders into an intermediate legal category-neither children, as they were seen in the early juvenile court era, nor adults, as they often are seen today. They observe that such an approach is not only more compatible than the current regime with basic principles of fairness at the heart of the criminal law, but also more likely to promote social welfare by reducing the social cost of juvenile crime.

Dancing with the Devil: A Study of Country Size and the Incentive to Tolerate Money Laundering

The incidence of money laundering, and the zeal with which international anti-money laundering (AML) policy is pursued, varies significantly from country to country, region to region. There are, however, quite substantial social costs associated with a policy of toleration, and this begs the question as to why such variance should exist. In this paper we claim that, due to the globalisation of crime, if a single country should break the “chain of accountability'', then it will provide a safe haven for criminals and attract the total financial proceeds of crime. Because smaller economies are best able to insulate themselves from the costs of crime, smaller countries therefore bear only a tiny share of the total costs relative to potential benefits of investment that money laundering offers, and so have a higher incentive to tolerate the practice compared to their larger neighbours. As such, we claim that the existence of a money laundering market is due to a policy of AML 'defection', and that the degree of 'defection' depends largely on the physical size of the country. In this paper we present a simple model of policy competition which formalises this intuition.

New Evidence on the Monetary Value of Saving a High Risk Youth

There is growing interest in crime prevention through early youth interventions; yet, the standard United States response to the crime problem, particularly among juveniles, has been to increase the use and resource allocation allotted toward punishment and incapacitation and away from prevention and treatment. At the same time, longitudinal studies of delinquency and crime have repeatedly documented a strong link between past and future behavior and have identified a small subset of offenders who commit a large share of criminal offenses. These findings suggest that if these offenders can be identified early and correctly and provided with prevention and treatment resources early in the life course, their criminal activity may be curtailed. While researchers have studied these offenders in great detail, little attention has been paid to the costs they exert on society. This paper provides estimates of the cost of crime imposed on society by high risk youth. Our approach follows and builds upon the early framework and basic methodology developed by Cohen (J Quant Criminol 14: 5–33, 1998), by using new estimates of the costs of individual crimes, ones that are more comprehensive and that significantly increased the monetary cost per crime. We also use new estimates on the underlying offending rate for high risk juvenile offenders. We estimate the present value of saving a 14-year-old high risk juvenile from a life of crime to range from $2.6 to $5.3 million. Similarly, saving a high risk youth at birth would save society between $2.6 and $4.4 million.

Using Economic Evaluation Techniques to Inform Policy: Reflections from Some UK Studies

Economic evaluation techniques are designed to provide some clear guidance to decision makers on the choice, in value for money terms, between specific interventions. However, such evaluations require a range of assumptions to be taken and these choices may impact on the ranking of interventions. This article explores these issues that arise in providing such policy relevant estimates using data from a number of recently completed United Kingdom (UK) studies. The broad welfarist approach which considers all costs and consequences is contrasted to a decision-maker approach taking a more restrictive set of costs and outcomes. The choice of perspective is shown to be an important issues affecting choices of different policies and interventions. Data from the UK studies also suggests there is currently insufficient evidence to support the general health outcome, Quality Adjust Life Years (QALYs) measure recommended by UK regulatory authorities to serve as a main individual drug user outcome. Crime and productivity costs have been a major part of many international evaluations but have mean measured and valued differently and different treatment across different studies can lead to different policy recommendations. The technicalities behind some economic studies should not obscure some of these important issues and the implications for intervention and policy choices.

Crime, protection, and incarceration

Criminals impose costs on society that go beyond the direct losses suffered by their victims; crime casts a shadow of uncertainty over our daily economic and social activities. Consequently, individuals and society as a whole choose to direct resources to crime prevention. In this study we analyze a virtual society facing such choices. Individuals, neighborhoods, and cities make crime prevention decisions and adjust their decisions over time as they attempt to balance the cost of crime with the cost of fighting it. The society that ultimately emerges exhibits aggregate criminal characteristics that mimic patterns of crime observable in the natural world. We then use this virtual society to conduct a series of anti-crime policy experiments, the results of which illustrate how different approaches to crime protection and incarceration can vary in their efficiency at reducing crime. As expected, more effective anti-crime measures tend to reduce crime, but the impact of prison is less clear. The model suggests that throwing more criminals into prison may reduce crime in the short run but may actually increase it in the long run.

The economic costs of childhood poverty in the United States

This paper attempts to estimate the aggregate annual costs of child poverty to the US economy. It begins with a review of rigorous research studies that estimate the statistical association between children growing up in poverty and their earnings, propensity to commit crime, and quality of health later in life. We also review estimates of the costs that crime and poor health impose on the economy. Then we aggregate all of these average costs per poor child across the total number of children growing up in poverty in the United States to obtain our estimate of the aggregate costs of the conditions associated with childhood poverty to the US economy. Our results suggest that these costs total about $500 billion per year, or the equivalent of nearly 4% of gross domestic product (GDP). More specifically, we estimate that childhood poverty each year: (1) reduces productivity and economic output by an amount equal to 1.3% of GDP, (2) raises the costs of crime by 1.3% of GDP, and (3) raises health expenditures ...

Estimating the Differential Costs of Criminal Activity for Juvenile Drug Court Participants: Challenges and Recommendations

Juvenile drug court (JDC) programs have expanded rapidly over the past 20 years and are an increasingly popular option for rehabilitating juvenile offenders with substance use problems. Given the high cost of crime to society, an important economic question is whether and to what extent JDC programs reduce criminal activity among juvenile offenders. To address this question, the present study added an economic cost analysis to an ongoing randomized trial of JDC conducted in Charleston, South Carolina. Four treatment conditions were included in the parent study: Family Court with usual community-based treatment (FC, the comparison group), Drug Court with usual community-based treatment (DC), DC with Multisystemic Therapy (DC/MST), and DC/MST enhanced with Contingency Management (DC/MST/CM). The economic study estimated the cost of criminal activity for nine specific crimes at baseline (pretreatment) and 4 and 12 months thereafter. A number of methodological challenges were encountered, suggesting that it may be more difficult to economically quantify frequency and type of criminal activity for adolescents than for adults. The present paper addresses methodological approaches and challenges, and proposes guidelines for future economic evaluations of adolescent substance abuse and crime prevention programs.

Wealth Redistribution and the Social Costs of Crime and Law Enforcement

Jeremy Bentham and Gary Becker established the tradition of analyzing criminal law in utilitarian and economic terms. This seminal book continues that tradition with specially commissioned, original papers that span the philosophical foundations of the use of economics in criminal law, both traditional economic perspectives and behavioral and experimental approaches to the discipline.

Costs of Juvenile Crime in Urban Areas

It is important to calculate the monetized social burden of crime, and a longitudinal perspective offers distinct advantages over studies limited to one year. This study assessed the monetary costs to society of self-reported male juvenile offending in urban areas. Previously published estimates of victim costs of a number of violent and property crimes were used to calculate the monetized social burden of criminal activity of a cohort of 503 boys (ages 7–17 years), comprising the youngest sample of the Pittsburgh Youth Study. Conservatively estimated, the cohort caused a substantial burden of harm to society in the form of victimization costs, ranging from a low of $89 million to a high of $110 million. From an early age the cohort was responsible for substantial crime victim losses, with these losses mounting in the teen years. Importantly, it is argued that high crime costs do not themselves suggest a policy solution. Implications for policy and research are explored within this context.

The costs and benefits of effective resettlement of young offenders

Resettlement programmes provide support for young offenders during their custodial sentence and for approximately nine months after release. This article describes how the costs and benefits of providing an effective service of this kind were estimated based on the ‘RESET’ programme, published evidence on the costs of crime and the likely reduction in offending due to an intensive support programme. The cost of crime has been estimated at £46,459 per year (after allowing for a reduction due to the time spent in custody), plus prison custody at an average of £30,475 and emergency accommodation at an average of £1,106, making a total of £78,040 for each offender. Using a fairly modest assumption that good support in resettlement could lead to approximately a 35% reduction in frequency and a 10% reduction in seriousness of offending, a saving of £20,407 per offender per year could be achieved. These savings would more than offset the average cost of a good quality resettlement service of £8,074. The scheme would break even if the frequency of offending were reduced by only 20%.

Toward an Integrated Model of Offending Frequency: A Replication Study

Criminology is limited by a paucity of replication studies. As such, the measurement of key concepts and the empirical support for theory is open to skepticism. Drawing on the RAND Survey of Inmates and a replication of it, the current study developed an integrated model of offending frequency that contained measures from the rational choice, criminal identity, and criminal careers literatures. A confirmatory structural equation model revealed that criminal self‐concept partially mediated the effects of background risk factors. Perceived costs of crime had no significant effect. Perceived benefits of crime were directly and indirectly (through criminal identity) related to offending frequency. However, differences in measures and variance across data sets contributed to discrepant model fit. This attests to the importance and increasing need for precise replication in criminological research.

The Economic Cost of Crime in Chile

This study estimates that the economic cost of crime in Chile, using the accountancy method, is $1.35 billion as at 2002; that is, this cost is equivalent to 2.06% of Chile's GDP. Crimes included in the estimation are murder, robbery, larceny–theft, burglary, wounding, rape and sexual assaults, domestic violence and economic felonies such as fraud, forgery and so on. Consequential costs are the most important, representing 68% of the total cost of crime. Government spending represents 23% of the total and anticipatory cost account for the remaining 9%. Chile presents higher level of crime than most developed countries—though less than most developing nations—but government's spending on citizen's security is considerably lower than that of the US and several other European countries.

Predicting Differences in the Perceived Relevance of Crime's Costs and Benefits in a Test of Rational Choice Theory

Previous hypothetical scenario tests of rational choice theory have presented all participants with the same set of consequences, implicitly assuming that these consequences would be relevant for each individual. Recent research demonstrates that those researcher-presented consequences do not accurately reflect those considered by study participants and that there is individual variation in the relevance of various consequences. Despite this and some theoretical propositions that such differences should exist, little empirical research has explored the possibility of predicting such variation. This study allows participants to develop their own set of relevant consequences for three hypothetical offenses and examines how several demographic and theoretical variables impact those consequences' relevance. Exploratory results suggest individual factors impact the perceived relevance of several cost and benefit types, even among a relatively homogenous sample of college students. Implications for future tests of rational choice theory, as well as policy implications are discussed.

Volunteering to be taxed: Business improvement districts and the extra-governmental provision of public safety

When the median voter's preference sets the level of local public goods, some voters are left unsatisfied. Is there an institution by which subsets of voters can resolve the collective action problem and increase the local provision of public goods? If so, what are the consequences? In response to problems such as crime and vandalism, neighborhood property owners have established Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) to provide local public goods. When a BID is approved by a majority of property owners in a neighborhood, state law makes contributions to the BID budget mandatory. This resolution of the neighborhood's collective action problem reduces crime — BIDs in the city of Los Angeles are robustly associated with crime declines of 6 to 10%. Indeed, crime falls regardless of estimation technique: fixed effects; comparing BIDs to neighborhoods that considered, but did not adopt, BIDs; using propensity score matching; and comparing BIDs to their neighbors. Strikingly, these declines are purchased cheaply. Attributing all BID expenditure to violent crime reduction, and thus ignoring the impact of BID expenditure on many quality-of-life crimes, BIDs spend $21,000 to avert one violent crime. This higher bound estimate is substantially lower than the $57,000 social cost of a violent crime.

From Preferences to Experiences: Valuing the Intangible Victim Costs of Crime

An important part of the costs of crime are intangible victim costs; that is, the effects on individual well-being. Economists tend to value such costs by asking people what they would be willing to pay to avoid them (either in money terms or by giving up something else of value, like life expectancy). However, psychological research has shown that such preferences are not a very good guide to how various events impact on well-being. Recent developments in the measurement of well-being as it is experienced provide promising alternatives to preference-based methods and we discuss how these methods could be developed further to provide more robust estimates of intangible costs of crime.

Towards an Understanding of ‘FEAR’ as an Intangible Cost of Crime

The aim of this article is to consider whether it is feasible to conceive of fear of crime as an intangible cost of crime and, thus, to develop a measure of costs to the individual using the kind of approach used in the field of health economics. Through a reflective and critical analysis of the literature, I demonstrate that the fear of crime is seriously under-developed at the conceptual level, theoretical and operational levels. I argue, then, that great care is needed in the development of any measures of fear as an intangible cost of crime. This process requires intensive conceptual development (defining ‘fear’ and ‘crime’) and the rigorous operationalisation of measures. I explain how methodological decisions will need to be made and justified, and importantly remain open to change as the phenomenon of fear of crime continues to be the subject of theoretical and empirical inquiry. I conclude that if this thorough approach is rejected in favour of a more speedy and poorly conceived solution, the negative impact on policy, the public and those working hard to de-mystify the concept of ‘fear’ would be striking.

A cost-effectiveness analysis of alcohol prevention targeting licensed premises

A multi-component alcohol prevention programme targeting licensed premises has been ongoing in Stockholm since 1996. An earlier study has established that this led to a 29% reduction in police-reported violence. The objective of the present study is to calculate the programme's cost-effectiveness from a societal perspective; the cost of implementation, the savings made as a result of fewer assaults, unlawful threats and violence towards officials, and the health gains in terms of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). The costs included administration, studies of alcohol serving practices, community mobilization, responsible beverage service training and stricter alcohol law enforcement. For the purpose of estimating how the decrease in violence affected savings and health gains, a survey among victims of violence (N=604) was performed. The cost of the programme was estimated at Euro 796,000. The average cost of a violent crime was estimated at Euro 19,049, which implies overall savings of Euro 31.314 million related to the judicial system (78%), production losses (15%), health care issues (5%) and other damages (2%). Accordingly, the base case cost-saving ratio was 1:39. The average loss of health state weighting among the victims at 0.09 translates into 236 gained QALYs for society as a whole, which should be compared with the modest proportion of savings in the health sector. The most significant concern is the low response rate (35%), and caution needs to be exercised when interpreting our results. Yet, a reasonable conclusion is that the monetary and human benefits have been considerable.

FINANCIAL CRIME IN AUSTRALIA

Financial crime is increasingly seen as a threat to the integrity of Australia's important financial sector. This paper examines the difficulties of evaluating the costs of financial crime and considers specific initiatives that have been undertaken in recent years to combat such activities.

New Evidence on the Monetary Value of Saving a High Risk Youth

There is growing interest in crime prevention through early youth interventions; yet, the standard United States response to the crime problem, particularly among juveniles, has been to increase the use and resource allocation allotted toward punishment and incapacitation and away from prevention and treatment. At the same time, longitudinal studies of delinquency and crime have repeatedly documented a strong link between past and future behavior and have identified a small subset of offenders who commit a large share of criminal offenses. These findings suggest that if these offenders can be identified early and correctly and provided with prevention and treatment resources early in the life course, their criminal activity may be curtailed. While researchers have studied these offenders in great detail, little attention has been paid to the costs they exert on society. This paper provides estimates of the cost of crime imposed on society by high risk youth. Our approach follows and builds upon the early framework and basic methodology developed by Cohen (1998), by using new estimates of the costs of individual crimes, ones that are more comprehensive and that significantly increased the monetary cost per crime. We also use new estimates on the underlying offending rate for high risk juvenile offenders.

Optimal Bail and the Value of Freedom: Evidence from the Philadelphia Bail Experiment

This paper performs a cost-benefit analysis to determine socially optimal bail levels that balance the costs to defendants against the costs to other members of society. We consider jailing costs, the cost of lost freedom to incarcerated defendants, and the social costs of flight and new crimes committed by released defendants. We estimate the effects of bail amounts on the fraction of defendants posting bail, fleeing, and committing crimes during pre-trial release, using data from a randomized experiment. We also use defendants' bail posting decisions to measure their subjective values of freedom. We find that the typical defendant in our sample would be willing to pay roughly $1,000 for 90 days of freedom. While imprecise, our optimal bail estimates are similar to the observed levels of bail prior to bail reform.