Crime and Crime Control - What Are the Social Costs? (From Reform of the Federal Criminal Laws, Part 15 - Hearings Before the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, First Session on S. 1722 and S. 1723, P 10864-10872, September 11, 13, 18, 20, 25, and October 5, 1979 - See NCJ-73017)

• NCJ Number: 73019
• Date Published: 1979
• Length: 8 pages
• Grant Number(s): 077-NI-99-0071
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Justice; US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Corporate Author: Washington State; Hoover Institution
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Publication Type: Legislative/Regulatory Material
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The costs of crime and crime control are examined in accordance with the methods and empirical results of recent economic research.

Abstract

The paper introduces the basic analytical framework for cost analysis and briefly examines some of its implications for public policies within the criminal justice system. The costs of crime are indicated to include the cost to the criminal, including the time and resources needed to commit the offense and the value of alternatives sacrificed should punishment result from the crime; the cost to the victim; and the costs of crime control. The challenge to the criminal justice system within the economic framework developed is indicated to be the cost-efficient allocation of the resources of the criminal justice system to minimize the social costs of crime. Several important conceptual issues in the definition and measurement of crime costs are considered, and some recent empirical findings regarding the magnitude of various components of those costs are reported. Finally, an illustrative calculation of the costs and benefits of crime reduction is given followed by an estimate of the social costs imposed by an average index felony. Tabular, data footnotes, and 19 references are provided.