NCJ Number
212291
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 45 Issue: 6 Dated: November 2005 Pages: 958-976
Date Published
November 2005
Length
19 pages
Annotation
Focusing on the realized intangible costs of violence against a person, this paper attempts to set out the different methods that can be used to provide more defensible estimates of the values of preventing the intangible consequences of crime and that use data that are currently available.
Abstract
There is a growing interest in the United Kingdom, as well as other countries, in finding out how much crime costs society. There are different types of costs associated with crime, some more amenable to measurement than others. Some costs are tangible in the sense of being relatively easy to quantify in money terms. Other costs are intangible, in that they are much more difficult to measure and quantify. Current estimates of the intangible costs of violent crime, such as pain, grief, and suffering experienced by victims are weak. This paper sets out the different methods that can be used to provide more defensible cost estimates, and that use data that are currently available. Three main strategies for estimating the intangible victim costs of crime from existing data are set out and include: (1) the use of direct values from revealed and stated preference studies; (2) taking willingness-to-pay (WTP) values to avoid a statistical death or injury in non-criminal contexts, applying them to the criminal context, and modifying and reallocating them to the offense categories; and (3) estimating a quality-adjusted life years (QALY) loss for each offense and then converting it into monetary values. The estimates suggest that rape results in the biggest loses, followed by other wounding, common assault, serious wounding, murder, robbery, and sexual assault. References