NCJ Number
173529
Date Published
1997
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This paper examines how much crime cost the Australian economy in 1996 and how these costs were shared among the various types of crime.
Abstract
Crime costs include not only property losses and/or medical costs incurred during the actual crime incident and its immediate aftermath, but also the costs of long-term and wide-ranging consequences of the incident, the costs of preventive efforts to reduce the future incidence or severity of such crimes, and the costs of the criminal justice system that processes the offenders. This paper estimates that the minimum total costs of crime in Australia are between $11 billion and $13 billion per year. Since there are numerous instances in which significant additional costs have been identified but not quantified, the true figure is likely to exceed the upper end of this range, i.e., a minimum of 2.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The largest components of these costs result from white-collar crime. The cost of the combined private and public efforts to prevent and counter crime amount to approximately $8 billion per year, approximately 1.9 percent of GDP. This figure, too, is likely to err on the low side, since there are additional costs that have not proven amenable to calculation. Overall, crime apparently costs Australians at least $18 billion per year, or approximately $1,000 per man, woman, and child; $2,800 per household; or more than 4 percent of GDP. 2 tables and 29 references