Monetary Costs and Benefits of Crime Prevention Programs

Few attempts have been made to calculate the monetary costs and benefits of crime prevention programs. Existing calculations for situational, developmental, and community prevention, and correctional intervention programs give hopeful indications that benefits often exceed costs. However, the noncomparability of methods used in different studies makes it impossible to determine which program or class of programs is the most economically efficient. A "how-to" manual should be developed and followed. A wide range of benefits should be measured, including health, employment, and education benefits, as well as crime reduction. Research is needed on issues such as using average versus marginal costs, using capital versus operating costs, discounting costs and benefits over different time periods, using tangible versus intangible victim costs, and calculating costs and benefits from different perspectives (such as victim, taxpayer, or program participant). Because the value of an economic analysis is limited by the quality of the research design, greater use should be made of high quality research designs combined with benefit-cost analyses. Funding agencies should commission and support benefit-cost evaluations of new and existing prevention programs.