NCJ Number
237671
Date Published
July 2011
Length
8 pages
Annotation
In updating an ongoing mandate of the Washington State Legislature for the Washington State Institute for Public Policy to "calculate the return on investment to taxpayers from evidence-based prevention and intervention programs and policies," this report summarizes data on the cost-effectiveness of State-funded, evidence-based efforts in eight areas.
Abstract
The report identifies public policies that have proven to be cost effective in the areas of child maltreatment, crime, education, labor earnings, mental health, public assistance, public health, and substance abuse. This update continues reports submitted to the Washington State Legislature beginning in the mid-1990s. The initial cost-effectiveness analyses focused on juvenile and adult criminal justice. The report identified several juvenile justice and adult corrections programs, which were not then operating in Washington State but which had the potential to reduce crime while saving taxpayers money. Currently, these crime-focused efforts are apparently fulfilling their proven ability to reduce juvenile crime relative to national rates and achieve a decrease in adult criminal recidivism. Overall, total crime has declined and criminal justice costs are lower than other strategies that have been tried. The current update first outlines the four-step general research strategy used by the Institute in conducting its cost-effectiveness analyses of the various State-funded programs and policies in the eight aforementioned domains. This is followed by a summary of results from the completion of the first three of the four steps. These steps involved an estimate of the capability of various policies and programs intended to improve outcomes in the domain being examined; determining the cost of the results identified in step one; and testing the robustness of the results by examining how conclusions might change when assumptions are altered. Results for each of the eight areas are presented in a table.