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The Costs and Consequences of Violent Behavior in the United States
... Estimates of the cost of assault vary widely in the literature (Wickramasekera et al. 2015). Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994) provide a detailed accounting of the cost of assault and are careful to distinguish between the direct and indirect costs. 24 Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994) estimates the direct cost of assault to be $16,500 (in 1987 dollars) or roughly $36,000 in 2018 dollars. ...
... Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994) provide a detailed accounting of the cost of assault and are careful to distinguish between the direct and indirect costs. 24 Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994) estimates the direct cost of assault to be $16,500 (in 1987 dollars) or roughly $36,000 in 2018 dollars. In contrast, McCollister, French, and Fang (2010) estimates that the total cost of an assault is $107,020 in 2018 dollars. ...
... 23 For example, the PM 2.5 Ambient Air Quality Standard is 35µg/m 3 . 24 Table 24 in Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994) details the components of the total cost of assault estimate. Direct costs include medical, mental health, property, police response, emergency transport. ...
We estimate the effect of short-term air pollution exposure (PM2.5 and ozone) on several categories of crime, with a particular emphasis on aggressive behavior. To identify this relationship, we combine detailed daily data on crime, air pollution, and weather for an eight-year period across the United States. Our primary identification strategy employs extremely high dimensional fixed effects and we perform a series of robustness checks to address confounding variation between temperature and air pollution. We find a robust positive effect of increased air pollution on violent crimes, and specifically assaults, but no relationship between increases in air pollution and property crimes. The effects are present in and out of the home, at levels well below Ambient Air Pollution Standards, and PM2.5 effects are strongest at lower temperatures. The results suggest that a 10% reduction in daily PM2.5 and ozone could save $1.4 billion in crime costs per year, a previously overlooked cost associated with pollution.
... Optimal allocation of state resources therefore requires accurate estimates of the social costs of crime. The most widely cited estimates of the social costs of crime rely on civil jury award data with serious limitations (Cohen, 1998;Cohen et al., 1994;Cohen and Miller, 1999;Miller, Cohen and Rossman, 1993;Miller, Cohen and Wiersema, 1996;Miller, Fisher and Cohen, 2001;Rajkumar and French, 1997). ...
... The two key challenges in applied studies are 1) the resolution of statistical and identification problems that confound causal inference (Dehejia and Wahba, 2002;Heckman, et al., 1997;2001;Imbens and Angrist, 1994;LaLonde, 1986;Manski, 1995;Raphael and Stoll, 2006;Rosenbaum and Rubin, 1983;Rubin, 1974;Smith and Todd, 2005, and 2) the development of robust estimates of prices of criminal victimization in the absence of market data (Cohen, 1998;Cohen et al., 1994;Miller, et al., 1996;Miller, et al., 2001;Rajkumar and French, 1997). The scholarly literature on issues of causal inference with observational data is far more extensive than the price literature, and this is reflected in the focus of economic scholarship on theoretical questions with recalcitrant identification problems (Evans and Owens, 2007;Kessler and Levitt, 1997;Knowles, Persico and Todd, 2001;Levitt, 1996;1997;Ludwig and Kling, 2007;Raphael and Winter-Ebner, 2001;Waldfogel, 1993). ...
... In a series of widely cited articles over the last two decades, Vanderbilt economist Mark Cohen writing alone (Cohen, 1988;2005) and with Ted Miller (Cohen and Miller, 1994;Cohen, et al., 1995;Miller, et al., 1996) There are now two sets of data available to update the jury award estimates that should allow for more direct estimation of victim costs than were available to MC. First, the RAND Institute of Civil Justice has collected jury award data over a long series (1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000) across a large number of jurisdictions, representing about one-quarter of the US population. ...
... Again, these estimates were derived from salary estimates only; they did not include fringe and assume one officer per arrest. 14 Improving on this framework, Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994) built up estimates of police expenditures across crime types. Here, they used surveys tapping the 14 Importantly, the Perry evaluations excluded (a) traffic offenses and (b) homicides. ...
... Building on Cohen et al. (1994), Miller and colleagues (1996) expanded their analysis to include more offenses and updated data sources. The authors used survey estimates of hours required to process a scene across crime types, and refer both to police services to investigate and arrest, as well as alternate resources such as fire/rescue deployment. ...
... The Dade County Department of Justice Assistance again used a top-down method to estimate the costs of prosecution to courts (see Cohen et al. 1994 assume costs are equal across all criminal prosecutions. Second, they excluded "non-crime" cases, rather than assuming these funds were spent on criminal cases. ...
This project develops and applies a cost-benefit analytic framework to evaluate a specific policy option facing the state of Maryland: To operate an early release program for adult inmates within a therapeutic boot camp facility, or a traditional prison that also emphasizes treatment. Drawing on a randomized experiment in which inmates were assigned to serve six-month terms at one of the two facilities, the study focuses on costs of administering programs and costs of recidivism during the observed 1 – 4 years after release. The data demonstrate the boot camp costs less to operate than the comparison site, and also generates significant reductions in the 'harm' incurred through recidivism. Thus, the data suggest the boot camp option generates a greater net social value for the state and community. These findings are robust to variation in assumptions and computational techniques, both standard to the cost-benefit literature as well as new approaches introduced in this dissertation.
... In a study of the costs of violent behavior in the United States, Cohen et al. (1994) estimated the aggregate cost of rape, robbery, and assault to be $259 billion. Miller et al. (1995) estimated that violent and property crimes cost victims $670 billion per year including pain, suffering, and reduced quality of life. ...
... In their studies of the cost of violent crime and the value of keeping high-risk youth out of crime, Cohen et al. (1994); Cohen (1998) estimate that the average incarcerated offender costs society $10,561 in lost productivity per year. Their estimate is based on the median pre-arrest income from the 1978 Survey of Inmates of Local Jails (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1980). ...
... The surveys asked criminals about their options if crime were not part of their life, and wages and unemployment rates were assumed to be the same as for non-criminals with the same demographic characteristics. Cohen et al. (1994) examined the pre-incarceration wage for criminals in the presence of crime. ...
The size of crime's burden informs the prioritization of crimeprevention efforts and influences our legal, political, and cultural stance toward crime. This research quantifies crime's burden with an estimate of the annual cost of crime in the United States. While most existing studies focus on particular regions, types of crime, or cost categories, the scope of this article includes the direct and indirect cost of all crime in the United States. Beyond the expenses of law enforcement, criminal justice, and victim losses, the cost of crime includes expenditures on private deterrence, the implicit cost of fear and agony, and the opportunity cost of time lost due to crime. The estimated annual cost of crime, net of transfers from victim to criminal, is $1.7 trillion.
... This taxonomy does not re-invent the wheel. Rather, it starts from the good work of Mark Cohen and colleagues (Cohen, Miller and Rossman, 1994;Cohen, 2005;GAO, 2017), and then incorporates input received from this project's advisory board to present a general way to begin looking at crime victimization costs with the project's stated specific focus on victims. The purpose of its inclusion here is to serve as a reference for forthcoming discussions about research methods and practitioner and victim concerns. ...
... In view of the low utilization rates, to get the costs per crime, researchers generally divide overall service costs by the number of crimes, whether or not victims were served. This gives an estimate of how much is actually being spent per crime (Miller, Cohen, and Rossman, 1994), but can significantly underestimate the cost of victimization if all victims were served. Yodanis, Godenzi, and Stanko (2000) built upon the idea that victim services providers can impart valuable information for cost estimation studies. ...
Produced by the Justice Research and Statistics Association in partnership with Urban Institute and the National Center for Victims of Crime. The intent of this assessment is to focus on the victims, so as to consider what information is most needed by those who service them. A second objective is to stay aware that even if the proximate victim is a business, the government, or non-profit organization, individual victims are still adversely affected. Data-collection activities and literature reviews are combined with extensive input from an advisory board of experts throughout this project, including the development of recommendations. Volume I of this report discusses the work and findings of three focus groups, which were tasked with obtaining the perspectives of specialized practitioner groups on how they currently use data on the costs of victimization. Overall, the focus groups provided important insights on several topics. Also discussed in Volume I are a service-provider survey and a survivor survey, which gained perspectives from the providers and recipients of victim services. They provided input on the costs involved in victimization. Volume II of this report presents the methodology and findings of a literature review of cost estimation methods, as well as victimization prevalence, incidence, and concentration. Volume III is entitled “The Roadmap: A Menu of Recommendations for Future Work.” Each of the recommendations provided address an identified research need related to estimation of the financial costs of crime victimization, either independently or overlapping with other proposed ideas. Some of the recommendations may have higher priority for some uses of cost estimates than for others; thus, priorities may differ for various users of this research.
PDF available on NCJRS at https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=277242.
... Following Brand and Price (2000), Cohen (1990) Cohen, Millerj and Rossman (1994) and Waters, Hyder, Rajkotia, Basu, Rehwinkel, Butchart (2004) the article focuses on the cost of damages and the impact on territorial inequalities. In order to understand who bears the cost of damages resulting from vandalism, an analysis has been conducted on insurance data. ...
... The figures showing the reported acts constitute only a part, relatively small, of the actual acts. Recalling that insurers require in principle, prior to compensation for a theft or damage, proof of a complaint to the police, Studies (Cohen, Millerj and Rossman, 1994;Bui-Trong, 1993) show that victims routinely do not report attacks, neither with the police or gendarmerie nor with insurers. A significant number of attacks therefore escape our examination. ...
Social disturbances have occurred repeatedly in recent years in several countries. The number of incivilities is important from a social point of view as long as they often concern fragile populations, the poorest, and small shops and businesses. In the meantime, there are concentrated in deprived areas where it is all the most important to prevent exclusion and desertification. The risk connected with vandalism is a risk of social exclusion and economic division for the territories. The article tries to characterize the spatial concentration of crime. It questions the action of insurances in the reduction of spatial discrepancies and social injustice.
... The Sellin-Wolfgang index assigned murder a weight of 26, more serious than an assault requiring hospitalization (7) and far more serious than an assault with the victim receiving minor injuries (1, the equivalent of a theft of less than $10). Although briefly popular, problems with surveys as a mechanism to determine a weighting soon became apparent, not just because of issues with survey methodology (Maltz, 1975), but also because of the difficulty distinguishing generic harms from individual victimizations (Cohen et al., 1994). ...
... This first attempt to articulate a measure of harm at a neighbourhood level is decidedly exploratory, probably not yet ready for operationalization and not without some notable limitations. The scale articulated in this article does not address the concerns of Cohen et al. (1994) that a generic measure is unable to differentiate between how a crime affects different segments of the population. It is of course true that the harm from the theft of a car is far greater to someone below the poverty line than to a wealthy stockbroker. ...
Measuring the effectiveness of the police in reducing harm to communities is often limited to comparing violent crime counts
from one year to another, and occasionally separately measuring traffic accidents. At present, the policing field lacks a
comprehensive measure that encompasses the multidimensional role of the police in the community while giving suitable weight
to the serious crimes that are of greatest public concern. Existing costs of crime and harm indices rated through sentencing
structures potentially ignore inadvertent harms perceived to affect communities such as the consequences of certain police
activities. This article introduces an index of harm based on sentencing guidelines that covers a wider array of offences
than costs of crime estimates or many previous sentencing guidelines, and demonstrates its applicability with a case study
from the city of Philadelphia, PA, USA. The article then examines the more polemic merits of including a measure of police
investigative activity (pedestrian and traffic stops) as a potential harm experienced by a community. The article demonstrates,
by examining police districts within Philadelphia, that significant variations of harm profile exist at the police district
level.
... Among the pioneers in measuring the costs of crime are Miller and Cohen of the US, notably in the report from the US National Institute of Justice (1996), based on Miller, Cohen and Wiersema (1996), as part of a series of outputs (Cohen and Miller 1998;Cohen, Miller and Rossman (1994), though there are other studies including, in Australia, Walker (1997). Cohen, Miller and Rossman (1994) suggest that the following should be included when estimating the cost crime to victims: Brand and Price (2000: viii). ...
... Among the pioneers in measuring the costs of crime are Miller and Cohen of the US, notably in the report from the US National Institute of Justice (1996), based on Miller, Cohen and Wiersema (1996), as part of a series of outputs (Cohen and Miller 1998;Cohen, Miller and Rossman (1994), though there are other studies including, in Australia, Walker (1997). Cohen, Miller and Rossman (1994) suggest that the following should be included when estimating the cost crime to victims: Brand and Price (2000: viii). These categories contain much of the violent crime that may be described as domestic violence. ...
... Certainly, the cost of juvenile crime is sufficient to make the costefficiency of intervention services a relevant issue (for an excellent review of the utility of cost-benefit analysis see McDougall et al. 2003). Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994) estimated the cost of all crime in the United States in 1987 to be more than $257 billion dollars. Because persons under age 18 account for 22 percent of all arrests in 1987 (Federal Bureau of Investigation 1996), the costs of crime attributable to juvenile offenders in that year would total more than $56.7 billion dollars. ...
... Costs for criminal-justice processing, including the cost of arrest, prosecution, and defense were calculated from updated estimates from the work of Cohen (Cohen 1998;Cohen et al. 1994) and reflect estimates from a national sample. In line with Cohen (1998), cost figures were adjusted to 2001 dollars, the midpoint of the study (see Table 1). ...
This study reports on the cost benefits of an intensive treatment program for unmanageable juvenile delinquent boys, compared to the usual treatment in a secured juvenile corrections facility. A total of 101 boys who received the majority of their treatment services in a specialized program providing intensive mental health treatment were matched to a group of 101 juveniles who received treatment as usual (TAU) in a secured juvenile corrections setting on the basis of treatment propensity scores. Outcome data included the number and type of criminally charged offenses over an average follow-up period of 53 months (range 14 to 92 months). Borrowing from Cohen criminal justice processing costs for each offense was calculated in 2001 dollars. The initial costs of the program were offset by improved treatment progress and lowered recidivism, especially violent recidivism. The treatment group yielded a benefit-cost ratio of more than 7 to 1 over the TAU group. The results are discussed and compared to cost-benefit analyses of other juvenile treatment programs.
... To date, researchers have been more successful in overcoming the first challenge. Most studies of this type have relied on the work of Ted Miller and Mark Cohen to estimate prices (Miller, Cohen, and Rossman 1993;Cohen, Miller, and Rossman 1994;Miller, Cohen, and Wiersma 1996;Cohen 1998;Miller, Fisher, and Cohen 2001). Among these studies, only Miller, Fisher, and Cohen (2001) focused specifically on the costs of crime (price) with juvenile offenders. ...
Arguments about the value of juvenile justice versus criminal justice traditionally focus on legal principles, adolescent development, and the relative effects of prevention and punishment. This paper suggests adding a cost-benefit approach to the debate. Every state currently has a separate justice system for juveniles, but what could happen if lawmakers made different choices about the types of youth that should be handled in that system? What would be the economic consequences of restricting (or expanding) use of the juvenile justice system? The answer depends on what policy changes were implemented and whether access to the juvenile system was changed for all youthful offenders or only some. In the view of the Research Roundtable, three basic options are available to U.S. policymakers who want to modify the use of the juvenile system: (1) complete abolition of the juvenile justice system, (2) legal abolition of the juvenile system with reinvention of a juvenile-like system within the criminal system, and (3) incremental jurisdictional changes.
... Thus, a child who has witnessed violence is more likely to be violent 36 . Other studies conducted have shown that witnessing violence has been linked to poor anger management, anti-social behaviour, and the perpetuation of violence 37,39,40,41,42 . ...
Background:
Violent acts perpetrated by young people can cause physical and psychological harm to others and is of serious public health concern. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of childhood trauma, and to assess the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and other predicting factors, and the perpetration of violence among young adults in Delta state prisons.
Methods:
A descriptive cross-sectional study design was conducted amongst 293 youths who were convicted prison inmates in Delta State Correctional facilities. Three out of the five facilities in Delta State were selected using simple random sampling, after which a total sampling of incarcerated inmates from the three selected facilities was carried out. Data were collected using the; Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) to measure adverse childhood experiences, and a proforma to classify the offence of the inmate (whether violent or non-violent).
Results:
The mean age of the respondents was 28.4 ± 5.4 years. The overall prevalence of childhood trauma was 5.1%. The most common abuse/neglect experienced while growing up was physical neglect with 26.3% followed by emotional neglect (20.5%), physical abuse (7.2%), emotional abuse (2.4%) and sexual abuse (1%).The prevalence of violent offences was 46.1%. Age, (OR=0.3; CI= 0.2-0.6, p=0.001), attaining primary education (OR=3.4; CI= 1.5-7.8, p=0.004) and having witnessed violence while growing up (OR=2.0; CI= 1.2-3.3, p=0.007) were all significant predictors of the perpetration of violence.
Conclusion:
The overall prevalence of childhood trauma was low; however, the perpetuation of violence was found to be high in this study. Further research is required to develop study instruments for childhood trauma that are more context specific bearing in mind local sociocultural practices.
... More recently, Ignatans and Pease (2016) assessed crime severity by surveying crime victims and examining the changes they exhibit over time. Some scholars (e.g., Brand & Price, 2000;Cohen et al., 1994;Heeks et al., 2018;McCollister et al., 2010;Miller, 1996) have also attempted to convert the damages caused by crime into economic values, as well as evaluate the cost of judicial procedures, the cost of recovery, etc. ...
Since Louis Thurstone, there have been nearly 100 years of attempts to compare and evaluate the severities of different crime types. Further research has been recently conducted, following methods such as the Cambridge Crime Harm Index (CCHI), which evaluates the harmful impact of crime on the society and identifies the areas in a city with truly high crime harm by weighting the more serious crimes. Although this index facilitates informed urban policy, its effectiveness in settings such as that of Japan, in which the rate of violent crimes, including gun crime, is low, and where crime occurrence is generally infrequent, remains unclear. Here, the Japanese CHI was analyzed by examining the criminal offense data of 77 jurisdictions in central Tokyo in 2010–2019. The pre-weighted counts and post-weighted harm were compared to examine the correlations and time-series changes between them, as well as their differences via different indicators, such as the Gini coefficient and Moran's I statistic. Additionally, space-time scans and principal component regressions were employed to determine the specific characteristics of the jurisdictions where harm accumulates. The result indicated that although the temporal and spatial variability of harm was higher than that of its counts, the tendency of high-harm jurisdictions to cluster was lower. Further, the implications of our findings, particularly regarding the socioeconomic factors that were revealed by the regression analysis, to urban policymakers were also discussed.
... Miller and his colleagues estimate victim-related costs of a typical homicide of about $3 million in 1 Many complexities that we do not discuss here must be addressed in crime cost estimation, such as diversity across crime incidents, choice of time frame, distinguishing between average and marginal costs, victims versus victimization, and accounting for perpetrator utility. Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994) and Cohen (2005) provide more-comprehensive discussions of these issues. ...
... The reasons for the shift in focus to crime prevention and discriminatory application of crime prevention policies is hard to place, but it is probably tied up with the successes of early evaluations of hot-spots policing (Sherman & Weisburd, 1995;Weisburd & Green, 1995) that overturned the conventional wisdom of many policing scholars that policing had little impact on crime rates (Bayley, 1994); controversy about the role of CJS policy in the extended decline of crime rates in the United States beginning in the early 1990s that generally persists to the present; and research by economists to monetize the social cost of crime (Anderson, 1999;Cohen, Miller, & Rossman, 1994) coupled with efforts to use those estimates in cost-benefit analyses of crime prevention policies. ...
Research Summary
In 2017, we published an essay (Nagin & Telep, 2017) that challenged the widely held view that research had plausibly demonstrated that procedurally just treatment of citizens by police increased the citizen's willingness to comply with the law and thereby reduced crime rates. This article updates Nagin and Telep (2017) with new evidence that has appeared since its publication, while exploring in more depth our critiques of the existing procedural justice evidence base. Overall, we reach a similar conclusion concerning the impact of procedurally just treatment on crime but with the qualification that the rapid growth in the literature offers some encouraging evidence on the effectiveness of procedural justice training in affecting officer's attitudes and the effectiveness of community policing infused with elements of procedural justice in improving citizen perceptions of police. Research on body‐worn cameras also provides indirect support that respectful police–citizen interactions have salutary impacts. We also set out a revisionist perspective on procedural justice that emphasizes the social value of procedural justice in its own right but also makes more modest predictions about impacts on legal compliance.
Policy Implications
Our critical assessment of the evidence on the crime prevention efficacy of procedurally just treatment, and even more fundamentally our skepticism about whether procedurally just treatment will reduce mala in se crimes against person and property, does not, however, mean that procedural justice should be relegated to a secondary status in policy discussion about effective policing. To the contrary, as we have argued and continue to argue, procedurally just treatment of citizens has social value independent of its impact on crime. Yet those benefits are still to be demonstrated. Police executives should, therefore, be cognizant that the effectiveness of this approach to policing should be closely monitored.
... Un primer camino para abundar sobre tales mecanismos lo ejemplifican las consecuencias de la victimización. Pensada en términos de costos económicos a nivel individual y familiar, ella puede resultar en pérdida de propiedades, pérdida de salario y altas cuentas hospitalarias (Cohen, Miller, & Rossman, 1994), afectaciones físicas y mentales (Moore, Prothrow-Stith, Guyer & Spivak, 1994), miedo al crimen, y modificaciones de la conducta para evitar una segunda victimización (Skogan & Maxfield, 1981). Otro acercamiento es el de los efectos de la victimización en el desarrollo personal y social de los individuos, es decir, el de los impactos desde la perspectiva del curso de vida. ...
The effects of increasing homicide rates on life expectancy are well documented but little research has focused on its impact on family dynamics and family structure. To begin filling this gap in the literature, we pool census data from 1990, 2000, and 2010 with homicide rates at municipal level to investigate the relationship between increasing homicide rates and changing family structure, using statistical techniques. Specifically, we focus on its possible impact on living arrangements of children living in localities with different levels of homicide rates. Our results shed some light on the pervasive effects of criminal violence on families and children’s well-being.
... It was arbitrarily assumed that prosecution costs were 1.5 times court costs including judge time. Defense costs were inflated fromCohen et al. (1994).Prison; jail -Estimates were computed from California data on the number of criminals under supervision in prisons (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2013b), years detained per inmate by type of sexual felony, and costs per year in prison(Henrichson & Delaney, 2012). Years detained per inmate by type of felony were calculated by dividing the total number of inmates (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2013b) by the number of new inmates for each type of felony (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2013a). ...
... It was arbitrarily assumed that prosecution costs were 1.5 times court costs including judge time. Defense costs were inflated fromCohen et al. (1994).Prison; jail -Estimates were computed from California data on the number of criminals under supervision in prisons (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2013b), years detained per inmate by type of sexual felony, and costs per year in prison(Henrichson & Delaney, 2012). Years detained per inmate by type of felony were calculated by dividing the total number of inmates (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2013b) by the number of new inmates for each type of felony (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2013a). ...
This report is intended to examine the overall impact and consequences of sexual violence on California’s economy, local communities, and the health and general well-being of its population. It provides the first systematic estimate of the cost of sexual violence in California, using well established economic methodologies and based on available data on the occurrence of sexual violence in 2011-2013. Based on these analyses, the conservative estimate is that the tangible costs of sexual violence in California, including medical and mental health care, prevention, investigation, sanctioning, treatment, and victim services, totaled over $9 billion in 2012. When intangible costs, such as lost quality of life and lost work productivity, are included, the total costs increase to $140 billion. This translates to an average of $3,700 for each resident of California per year. At least $2.9 billion, or two percent of total costs, come from tangible local and state government spending and federal funding allocated to California. Importantly, almost $117 billion of the estimated costs come from the work and quality of life losses experienced by victims and their families.
Research has shown that programs that address the root causes of sexual violence, by modifying risk factors and/or enhancing protective factors, can prevent sexual violence perpetration (DeGue et al., 2014). Prevention programs would lead to substantial cost savings: every prevented rape of an adult could save up to $163,800, and every prevented rape or sexual assault of a child could save up to $227,700. Preventing future incidents of sexual violence, while maintaining and improving services, would reduce costs to victims, governments and society.
... 3 The study then applies the likelihood of a crime, specific to each Part 1 crime type, of reaching each main stage to generate the cost per Part 1 crime type. Cohen et al. (1994) use the estimate of police and investigation time in Dade County and apply the average police ontime pay to generate a cost of $477 in 1987 dollars ($1097 adjusted to 2010 using the National Average Wage Index; SSA, 2015) on average for Part 1 violent and property crime and drug-related crimes. For a detailed description of this study, see Appendix A.1. ...
Crime is an important outcome in many social policy evaluations. Benefits to society from preventing crime are based on avoiding victimization and freeing criminal justice system resources. For the latter, analysts need information about the marginal cost of policing for different types of crime across jurisdictions; however, this information is not readily available. This paper details key economic concepts relevant to law enforcement services, and then combines publicly available police expenditure data with insights from observational and time-diary studies to generate state-level, crime-specific, average variable cost estimates for crime-response services conducted by police by crime type. Since there is considerable uncertainty concerning various parameters underpinning these calculations, we use Monte Carlo simulation methods to incorporate the uncertainty into our estimates. This study finds that the U.S. population-weighted average variable cost of law enforcement response per police-reported Part 1 violent crime is $10,900, ranging from $6900 to $15,400 at the 10th and 90th percentiles, respectively. For a Part 1 property crime, the equivalent figure is $1300, with a range from $700 to $1700.
... Their work consisted of asking respondents to rank crimes based on a scale of 1-11, where 11 was the most serious (Figlio, 1975). Although their work found strong correlations between each group, their approach has been criticized widely, largely due to their choice of methods: the use of a survey to determine index weightings (Maltz, 1975); lack of diversity among the individuals involved in the panel (Rose, 1966); the difficulty of distinguishing generic harms from individual victimizations (Cohen et al., 1994); and the additivity assumption (Pease et al., 1974). However, since the days of Selling and Wolfgang, several weighed models have been proposed, and below we review some of them. ...
Purpose
Virtually all analyses of hotspots have been devoted to a crude counting system, i.e. tallying the number of occurrences that take place in pre-specified units of space and time. Recent research shows that while usually half of all criminal events are concentrated in about 3 percent of places commonly referred to as “hotspots” of crime, similar proportions of harm concentrate in only 1 percent of places. These are “harmspots.” Identifying that harm is a more concentrated issue suggests wide policy and research implications, but what are the dynamics of these harmspots? The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper provides a descriptive framework for measuring, as well as evidence about, these patterns and concentrations, harmspots in Sussex, England.
Findings
There are four discrete offense categories that account for 80 percent of all the harm within harmspots. These categories include: sexual offenses, violence against the person, robbery and theft. Within these high harmspots, crime counts and harm are strongly correlated ( r =0.82, p =0.001). Temporal analyses show that harmspots are not evenly spread across time and place, with night time and weekends becoming substantially more susceptible to harm – more than count-based models. Harmspot trajectory analysis suggests evidence of stability over time within the high harmspots; most harmspots remain chronically inflicted with harm. Violence and sexual offenses are random in their spatial distribution between the harmspots, but robberies and theft are more closely coupled to particular harmspots than others.
Originality/value
Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of future research avenues and crime policy.
... Sexual violence continues to be a public health problem in the United States and globally. Nearly three decades of research has established the short-and long-term physical and mental health consequences of sexual violence (Basile & Smith, 2011;Bloom, 2000;Bryant-Davis et al., 2009;Krug, Dahlberg, Mercy, Zwi, & Lozano, 2002;McMahon, Goodwin, & Stringer, 2000), as well as social and economic costs (Byrne, Resnick, Kilpatrick, Best, & Saunders, 1999;Cohen, Miller, & Rossman, 1994). In 1994, prevention of sexual violence was prioritized through the Violence Against Women Act, which established the Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) Program that provides funding for state-level primary prevention programming. ...
Sexual violence is a public health problem associated with short- and long-term physical and mental health consequences. Most interventions that aim to prevent sexual violence before it occurs target individual-level change or promote bystander training. Community-level interventions, while increasingly recommended in the sexual violence prevention field, are rarely documented in peer-reviewed literature. This paper is a targeted process evaluation of Project Envision, a 6-year pilot initiative to address social norms at the root of sexual violence through coalition building and community mobilization in three New York City neighborhoods, and reflects the perspectives of those charged with designing and implementing the program. Evaluation methods included a systematic literature review, archival source document review, and key informant interviews. Three themes emerged from the results: community identity and implications for engagement; capacity and readiness for community mobilization and consequences for implementation; and impacts on participants. Lessons learned include the limitations of using geographic boundaries to structure community interventions in urban settings; carefully considering whether communities should be mobilized around an externally-identified issue; translating theoretical frameworks into concrete tasks; assessing all coalition partners and organizations for readiness; critically evaluating available resources; and recognizing that community organizing is a skill that requires investment from funders. We conclude that Project Envision showed promise for shifting institutional norms towards addressing root causes of sexual violence in addition to providing victim services.
... Indeed, although arrests for sexual crimes are relatively rare, accounting for less than 1% of all arrests (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013), these crimes are among the most devastating to victims (Chapman, Dube, & Anda, 2007;Letourneau, Resnick, Kilpatrick, Saunders, & Best, 1996). Furthermore, the economic impact of sexual crimes is substantial, including costs for the incarceration of offenders and treatment of victims (Cohen, Miller, & Rossman, 1994;Post, Mezey, Maxwell, & Wibert, 2002). Therefore, effective treatment may not only benefit the youth and his or her family but may also save many persons from victimization. ...
This chapter provides an overview of our adaptation of multisystemic therapy (MST) to the treatment of youths with criminal and non-criminal sexual behaviour problems, known as MST for Problem Sexual Behaviours (MST-PSB). We begin with a brief description of the empirical underpinnings and theoretical foundations of the MST-PSB approach. Next, we provide an overview of clinical interventions in MST-PSB and describe how MST-PSB is operationalized (i.e., specified) and delivered to youths and families (using a home-based model of service delivery). We then summarize findings from randomized clinical trials that demonstrate the clinical and cost-effectiveness of MST-PSB, followed by a description of how MST-PSB can be successfully transported to community-based provider organizations using extensive quality assurance procedures. Finally, we highlight several challenging research issues that should be considered in the development of effective treatments for youths with problem sexual behaviours.
... Second, even the reduced figure of $2.81 exaggerates the benefits police gained from CCTV. In accordance with the general cost of crime literature (Cohen 1988(Cohen , 1994Piquero 2009), La Vigne et al. (2011: 20-21) included three distinct expenditures in their criminal justice costs: the cost of arrest (Aos et al. 2001), the cost of pre-sentencing (Roman et al. 2008), and the cost of incarceration (Durose and Langan 2004;Roman and Chalfin 2006;Stephan 2004). While the sum of these costs provides a valid measure of criminal justice expenditures, they are not cumulatively absorbed by a single entity. ...
... Second, even the reduced figure of $2.81 exaggerates the benefits police gained from CCTV. In accordance with the general cost of crime literature (Cohen 1988(Cohen , 1994Piquero 2009), La Vigne et al. (2011: 20-21) included three distinct expenditures in their criminal justice costs: the cost of arrest (Aos et al. 2001), the cost of pre-sentencing (Roman et al. 2008), and the cost of incarceration (Durose and Langan 2004;Roman and Chalfin 2006;Stephan 2004). While the sum of these costs provides a valid measure of criminal justice expenditures, they are not cumulatively absorbed by a single entity. ...
Objectives
This study presents a cost–benefit analysis of an intervention pairing proactive CCTV monitoring with directed police patrol in Newark, NJ. A recent randomized control trial found that the strategy generated significant crime reductions in treatment areas relative to control areas. The current study focuses on the financial implications of the experimental strategy through a cost–benefit analysis.
Methods
The study begins by measuring the costs and benefits associated with the experimental strategy, the findings of which can inform agencies with existing CCTV infrastructure. Follow-up analyses measure the costs and benefits of the intervention for agencies absent existing CCTV infrastructure, meaning a CCTV system would have to be funded in addition to the intervention outputs. Alongside overall benefits, this study presents the tangible cost savings afforded to the Criminal Justice system as well as to each of the separate criminal justice (CJ) system components: Policing, Courts, and Corrections.
Results
We found the experimental strategy to be highly cost effective for agencies with existing CCTV infrastructure. However, when the cost of the CCTV system is considered, the strategy is largely cost prohibitive. While the cumulative societal and criminal justice findings suggest some evidence of a modest cost savings, the strategy is highly cost prohibitive for each of the individual CJ system components when CCTV system costs are included.
Conclusions
Results suggest that the experimental strategy is a worthwhile investment for agencies with existing CCTV infrastructure. Agencies absent CCTV may want to consider whether funds would be better allocated towards alternate strategies.
... Indeed, although arrests for sexual crimes are relatively rare, accounting for less than 1% of all arrests (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013), these crimes are among the most devastating to victims (Chapman, Dube, & Anda, 2007;Letourneau, Resnick, Kilpatrick, Saunders, & Best, 1996). Furthermore, the economic impact of sexual crimes is substantial, including costs for the incarceration of offenders and treatment of victims (Cohen, Miller, & Rossman, 1994;Post, Mezey, Maxwell, & Wibert, 2002). Therefore, effective treatment may not only benefit the youth and his or her family but may also save many persons from victimization. ...
IntroductionCorrelates of Juvenile Sexual OffendingTheoretical and Clinical ImplicationsSpecialized Treatments for Juveniles who Engage in Problem Sexual BehaviorsTreatment Theory, Clinical Features and Principles of Multisystemic Therapy (MST)Adaptation of MST for Youth with Problem Sexual BehaviorsClinical Trials of MST for Youth with Problem Sexual BehaviorsConclusions
... (drawn from Roehl, 1998) Averted costs of police protection from crime: Roman et al. (1998) report estimates for the cost of arrests for four crimes, compiled by Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994), who include in their figures the defendant's legal services and the system costs of arrest, booking, jail, pretrial investigation and hearings, trial, sentencing, posttrial jail, and conditional release. Their costs of arrest range from $1,898 for robbery to $8,954 for murder. ...
March 2000 [Revised, March 2002] This self-evaluation manual and the Drug CMS 2000 were developed under Grant No. SJI-98-N-128 from the State Justice Institute. The points of view expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the State Justice Institute.
... The second study, Cohen (1998) (using estimates from Cohen et al. (1994)) takes an enumerative approach, estimating per-crime CJS costs with public records on crime and expenditure. For each crime type and stage of the CJS (see Figure H.8), estimates are presented for the probability that a crime of that type will progress to that stage from an initial police report. ...
... After much research into this area, the Environmental Protection Agency now uses these estimates for cost-benefit analyses, and many states have enacted environmental costing for utility companies based on such research findings. Cohen et al. (1994) discussed how the application of criminal policy analysis could also benefit from specific cost estimates. To this point, the research used to evaluate the costs of specific crimes has focused on the actual costs incurred by the victim or society for the crimes committed. ...
... learly the best basis would be a recent, California-specific, and marijuana-specific study of the arrest process and associated costs; conducting such primary data collection was beyond what we could accomplish in the time and resources available, but it represents an important opportunity for improving the state of the art of studies of this sort. Cohen et al. (1994) praise a 1987 Miami Dade County as being particularly strong for costing; after adjusting for inflation its cost per arrest (including investigation and booking) was $1,233, but that is dated, and pertains to all arrests not just drug arrests. We use it only for their estimate of the cost of booking ($186 per case, or $347 after adjusti ...
... Antisocial behaviors result in emotional damage to families, schools and communities, who also bear the financial costs of destroyed property. Antisocial behavior by the most severely or chronically antisocial adolescents may also lead to their involvement in the juvenile justice system and adjudication (Cohen, Miller, & Rossman, 1994;Cohen, 1998). The high price of youths' antisocial behavior and the dramatic increases in juvenile delinquency during the 1980's and 1990's have led to increased interest in effective interventions for antisocial behavior in youths (Lochman, Barry, & Pardini, 2003). ...
... Furthermore, studies have shown that children with emotional and behavioral problems are costly to raise and educate, for society in general, and presumably, for parents as well (Cohen, Miller, & Rossman, 1994;Loeber, Burke, Lahey, Winters, & Zera, 2000). For example, more than 12 years ago Cohen (1998) found that the cost to society of a single high-risk youth dropping out of school and engaging in criminal behavior ranged between US$1.7 and US$2.3 million dollars; this figure would be approximately US$2.4 to US$3.3 million in 2012. ...
Little is known about the adult outcomes for children with an emotional/behavioral disorder (EBD). The present study examines the perspectives of 34 parents regarding the adult outcomes for their children who experienced emotional and behavioral problems in their youth. Participants completed an online survey containing questions about their child’s behavioral characteristics, educational experiences, and adjustment to adulthood as well as questions about the stress they experienced as a parent of a child with EBD. Both quantitative and qualitative measures were used to assess parents’ perceptions of factors affecting their child’s successful or unsuccessful adult outcomes. Remaining in school was related to positive adult outcomes, while exclusionary disciplinary experiences such as suspension and expulsion were related to negative adult outcomes. The relationship of results to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act’s goals for adult functioning and implications for both parents and practitioners serving students with EBD are discussed.
... This figure is based on two factors: a) The estimated cost of all crime in the United States in 1987 was $257 billion(Cohen et al. 1994), and b) Juveniles accounted for 22 % of all arrests in that year(Federal Bureau of Investigation 1996). Considering that the annual burden of crime in today's dollars has been estimated at $1 trillion(Anderson 1999) and individuals under 18 accounted for over 14 % of all arrests in 2009 (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2010), $56.7 billion per year is undoubtedly an underestimate. ...
Psychopathy-related paralimbic and limbic structural brain abnormalities have been implicated in incarcerated adult and adolescent male samples. However, there have been few neuroimaging studies of psychopathic traits in females in general and no studies from incarcerated female youth in particular. Here we present the first study to examine the relationship between brain gray matter volumes and psychopathic traits (assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist-Youth Version [PCL-YV]) in a sample of maximum-security incarcerated female adolescents (N = 39; mean age = 17.6 years). Consistent with male samples, regional gray matter volumes were negatively related to psychopathic traits in female youth offenders in limbic and paralimbic areas, including orbitofrontal cortex, parahippocampal cortex, temporal poles, and left hippocampus. These results provide evidence that psychopathic traits manifest similar neural abnormalities across sex and age.
Violence is a harmful, complex and gendered act that impacts individuals and communities financially, physically, socially and psychologically. Many studies have investigated how and why gender impacts perceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV), but little research has investigated its effect on stranger violence, despite being publicly perceived as causing greater fear and harm. Th is study examines the effects of gender attitudes and stereotypes on perceptions of stranger violence, specifically attributions of blame, affective response, alleged motivations and attitudes regarding the acceptability of violence (in general). Data was collected from 265 United Kingdom (UK) adults using an online survey posted on Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Results indicate that like IPV, gender affects perceptions of stranger violence. Male and female perpetrators of stranger violence are perceived differently, and gender differences are evident between male and female participants. Practical implications of the findings are discussed.
The study analyzed the criminogenic effect of legalizing recreational marijuana dispensaries in Denver. Street segments with recreational dispensaries experienced no changes in violent, disorder and drug crime but did experience an 18% increase in property crime, and street segments adjacent to recreational dispensaries experienced some notable (but non-significant) drug and disorder crime increases. Medical dispensaries demonstrated no significant crime changes. A cost-benefit analysis found the associated crime costs were largely offset by sales revenue. Monetary benefits were much less pronounced, and barely cost effective, when only considering tax revenue.
The study of aggression in juvenile offenders, a high priority from clinical and public health standpoints, depends on properly measuring and modeling aggression. The Aggressive Behaviors scale from the Youth Self-Report (YSR–AB) has been widely used to measure youth aggression, often functioning as a stand-alone scale in analyses (of note, even when analyzed alone, the YSR–AB must be administered as part of the full YSR to retain its integrity). However, knowledge of its factor analytic structure among juvenile offenders is lacking. We addressed this gap. Factor analyses of YSR–AB data from 310 probation youth (M age = 16 years, 90% African American, 66% male) supported a hierarchical structure, with 2 lower order factors distinguishing aggression targeting others (e.g., physical attack) from related symptoms (e.g., mood swings). The targeted aggression items showed significantly stronger associations with other externalizing symptoms than did the related symptom items; the opposite pattern emerged for internalizing symptoms. In further support of the convergent and discriminant validity of these subscales, the related symptoms were differentially linked to gender, with females reporting significantly higher levels than males. The hierarchical solution appeared to be stable over 1 year. Implications for interpreting past findings and conducting future research with the YSR–AB are discussed.
Purpose
Support service provisions for domestic abuse victims have typically focussed on the immediate risk and etiological factors associated with abuse. Consequently, there is limited research exploring more persistent and pervasive factors involved in this cycle of abuse, such as subjective experiences and beliefs held by victims of domestic abuse. The purpose of this paper is to preliminary explore individual experience of domestic abuse including the belief systems of participants. Increasing our understanding of key factors and beliefs in the experience of domestic abuse could enable support services to create more long-term sustainable support for victims.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 12 women with a history of domestic abuse participated in an exploratory interview about their general beliefs and thoughts surrounding their domestic abuse experience. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.
Findings
The thematic analysis identified four belief themes: personal responsibility, antisocial attitudes, environmental factors and negative attitudes towards police.
Practical implications
The paper highlights the value of understanding subjective, personalized experiences and beliefs of domestic abuse victims; identifies the importance of belief systems as potential treatment targets for domestic abuse victims; and acknowledges an avenue for more effective support provision for victims of domestic abuse.
Originality/value
This preliminary study offers new insights into the role of belief systems amongst a sample of domestically abused women. Understanding the significance of personalized, subjective experiences of domestic abuse victims is a step towards designing and implementing effective interventions. The findings further emphasize the need for more empirical research and theory development within the area of beliefs and domestic abuse victims.
The past 15 years have seen a growing interest in studies that estimate the costs of crime. In that time, there
have been advances in data linkage and methodological procedures that have resulted in better cost estimates of official and unofficial offending. Such information is crucial for cost-benefit analysis which seeks to understand whether the long-term costs of crime can be offset by investments in early intervention. This report presents findings on the longitudinal costs of criminal offending for a sample of 386 male offenders in Ontario whose offence costs were tabulated for a 15-year period, between the ages of 12 and 26 years. Cost estimates were obtained for four components: 1) victim costs; 2) correctional costs; 3) other criminal justice system (CJS) costs, for example, police, court, prosecution, and legal aid expenditures; and 4) costs associated with undetected crimes. The results indicated that the aggregate longitudinal cost of offending for this sample was $2.26 billion, an average of $5.86 million per person. Moreover, costs differed across risk trajectory groups and across developmental periods. Costs were disproportionately higher for the small group of high-rate offenders and disproportionately lower for the large group of low-rate offenders. The most costly period was mid to late adolescence, between the ages of 15 and 17, which accounted for 40% of the total costs. These results suggest that tremendous costs savings can be gained if effective developmental crime prevention programs successfully target high-risk children and youth.
Programs that prevent crime cost money. In order to efficiently allocate these limited funds, we need to know how much people benefit from crime prevention. While there are some comprehensive estimates of the cost of (or benefits of avoiding) crime to victims and to society at large, we have very limited crime-specific information on the legal system resources that would be freed up for other purposes across states. Using a Monte Carlo simulation approach to take into account uncertainty in the data, this study finds the national average costs to taxpayers for judicial/legal services per reported crime are likely around the following (in 2010 dollars): $22,000–$44,000 (homicide), $2000–$5000 (rape and sexual assault), $600–$1300 (robbery), $800–$2100 (aggravated assault), $200–$600 (burglary), $300–$600 (larceny/theft), and $200–$400 (motor vehicle theft). At a state-level, the costs of crime are 50 % to 70 % more or less than these national averages depending on the crime type and state. These estimates can be used to understand the level of resources spent per crime and the potential legal resources freed up for a change in reported crime rates; they are not a measure of waste or efficiency, but it is hoped this study contributes to this debate.
Sexual assault prevalence rates differ by ethnicity, and there is little research on sexual assault in women of Asian/Pacific Islander ancestry, compared to women of European ancestry. In the current online study, we examined heavy episodic drinking, rates of assault, and assault severity among native and nonnative English-speaking college students of Asian/Pacific Islander ancestry. Native English-speaking students of Asian/Pacific Islander ancestry reported similar sexual assault severity before and since college, compared to their nonnative English-speaking counterparts. Students of European ancestry reported more severe before-college sexual assault histories than native English-speaking students of Asian/Pacific Islander ancestry. No group differences were found in college sexual assault severity. Students of European ancestry reported more frequent heavy episodic drinking than native English-speaking students of Asian/Pacific Islander ancestry, which in turn was associated with more severe assaults since college. For all students, more frequent heavy episodic drinking was associated with more severe assaults in college. Because all students are at risk of being assaulted, culturally sensitive programming should be developed for students of Asian/Pacific Islander ancestry.
Introduction In recent years, in the United Kingdom and other industrialised countries, there has been a growing interest on the part of governments and other stakeholders in the economic costs and benefits of the early prevention of antisocial behaviour. Rising criminal justice costs, a greater understanding of the economic impacts of crime and fiscal cut-backs are just some of the issues that have prompted this attention. However, investments in effective delinquency and criminality prevention programmes have not kept pace with this level of interest, and investments remain extremely small in comparison with government spending on criminal justice strategies (Waller and Welsh, 1999). This chapter provides some evidence for moving beyond this passive interest. This chapter is concerned with the primary prevention of delinquency and later offending. Primary prevention focuses on preventing these behaviours before any signs of them become evident. Essentially, it aims to influence positively the early risk factors or ‘root causes’ of delinquency and later offending, typically through broad-based strategies. Some of the major causes or risk factors include: growing up in poverty, living in poor housing, inadequate parental supervision and harsh or inconsistent discipline, parental conflict and separation, low intelligence and poor school performance, and a high level of impulsiveness and hyperactivity (Farrington, 1996). Secondary prevention, which is given some mention here, is distinguished from primary prevention through its targetted interventions at older children and adolescents who show signs of antisocial behaviour or other related risk factors (e.g. substance abuse, delinquent peers). © Cambridge University Press 2004 and Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Youth with serious and persistent conduct problems receive treatment in primary care and mental health clinics, foster group homes, residential treatment centers, foster family homes (see Chapter 23, this volume), family homes, and the public schools. Such settings are often operated or funded through public agencies legally mandated to treat (mental health), rehabilitate (juvenile justice), educate (special education), or protect (social services) youth. Irrespective of the service system (e.g., mental health, juvenile justice) or setting (clinic, foster home) in which youth presenting with Conduct Disorder (CD)* receive treatment, psychotherapy of some type generally bears the burden of producing change (Kazdin, 1994)
This report presents results from an evaluation of the Safe City Initiative. Launched by the Target Corporation in 2003, the goal of Safe City is to partner local law enforcement with retailers and community leaders to increase public safety. The evaluation, which employed surveys of businesses, Difference-in-Differences analyses of reported crime data, and cost-benefit analyses, found increases in perceptions of safety among businesses in the designated Safe City area and cost-effective reductions in crime in two of the four sites. In one site, however, crime reductions were limited to specific crimes and coincided with increases in other types of crimes.
This report summarizes the results of an evaluation of public surveillance systems in Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., examining how systems in each of these jurisdictions were selected and implemented and assessing the degree to which they achieved their intended crime prevention impact. The study also explored whether surveillance cameras displaced crime or yielded a diffusion of benefits to areas just beyond the cameras reach, and included a cost-benefit analysis component in two of the three study sites. Findings indicate that in places where cameras were sufficiently concentrated and routinely monitored by trained staff, the impact on crime was significant and cost-beneficial, with no evidence of crime displacement.
Research Summary
Supermaximum‐security prisons—or “supermaxes”—symbolize the “get tough” criminal justice policies that have developed over the past three decades in the United States and in other countries. Proponents believe that they effectively address critical prison system problems; opponents believe that they do not and that they create substantial harm. This essay examines the available evidence about supermaxes.
Policy Implications
A range of considerations are relevant to determining whether supermaxes constitute effective policy. These include (a) definitional problems in discussing supermax incarceration; (b) five critical dimensions along which evidence for policies is desirable and along which supermaxes fall short, including demonstration of policy need, credible policy theory, high‐quality implementation, impact, and benefits that exceed costs and do so more than other policies; (c) the challenge of assessing causal claims related to supermaxes; (d) legal and ethical issues; (e) policy and political challenges confronting states; (f) policy options other than supermaxes; and (g) research gaps that remain to be addressed. The essay argues that causal uncertainty about supermax incarceration makes it difficult at present to claim credibly that it achieves intended goals. Policy implications and recommendations are discussed.
A benefit-cost analysis was conducted as part of a clinical trial in which newly-admitted methadone patients were randomly assigned to interim methadone (IM; methadone without counseling) for the first 4months of 12months of methadone treatment or 12months of methadone with one of two counseling conditions. Health, residential drug treatment, criminal justice costs, and income data in 2010 dollars were obtained at treatment entry, and 4- and 12-month follow-up from 200 participants and program costs were obtained. The net benefits of treatment were greater for the IM condition but controlling for the baseline variables noted above, the difference between conditions in net monetary benefits was not significant. For the combined sample, there was a pre- to post-treatment net benefit of $1470 (95% CI: -$625; $3584) and a benefit-cost ratio of 1.5 (95% CI: 0.8, 2.3), but using our conservative approach to calculating benefits, these values were not significant.
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