NCJ Number
187303
Date Published
2000
Length
100 pages
Annotation
Criminal justice policymakers and managers make daily decisions that reflect implicit judgments about the relative seriousness of various crimes, or about the benefits of pursuing one approach to reducing crime rather than another; this British study is a first step toward making such judgments more explicit and in making sure they better reflect the available evidence on the impacts on society of various types of crime.
Abstract
One of the aims of the criminal justice system is to reduce crime and the fear of crime, along with their social and economic costs. This study reports on progress toward a cost-of-crime measure that can be used to assess performance against this aim. The study focuses on offenses that fall under notifiable offense categories in Great Britain; therefore, the study does not attempt to estimate the costs of all crime, but rather a subset of crime for which reliable information is available on the costs and the number of offenses committed. In estimating the actual number of crimes in the selected categories, the study links the total estimated number of offenses in a given year to changes in the number of offenses recorded by the police in that year. Where possible, the British Crime Survey was used to estimate actual numbers of offenses. In this study, "costs of crime" refer to the full range of impacts of crime, approved where possible in monetary terms. Costs are incurred in anticipation of crimes occurring, such as security expenditures, and insurance costs; as a consequence of criminal events, such as property stolen and damaged, emotional and physical impacts, and health services; and responding to crime and processing criminals, i.e., criminal justice system costs. The study measures costs by using victim surveys and estimates of industry turnover and costs (security and insurance industries). Resource cost estimates for the criminal justice system were derived from a model developed by the Home Office to track flows and costs through the criminal justice process. Emotional and physical impacts of crime were estimated by using figures for people's willingness to pay to avoid traffic accidents. Average costs of crime were found to vary widely between offense categories, with the most costly being property crimes, notably the theft of vehicles. The total costs of crime to England and Wales in 1999-2000 was estimated at approximately 60 billion pounds; this does not include important costs such as fear-of-crime or quality-of-life impacts. Extensive tables and figures, appended supplementary information, and a 48-item bibliography