The Costs of Violent Crime
• Author(s): Giles Atkinson, Susana Mourato & Andrew Healey
• Published: December 2003
• Pages in paper: 16
Abstract
This paper reviews a number of studies that have sought to estimate the
economic costs of criminal offending and, more specifically, violent crime. Firstly,
it discusses those approaches that have sought to describe the ‘big picture’ by
calculating the aggregate burden of all crime. These studies yield useful overall
summaries about the magnitude of the crime problem but also reveal how little is
known about the value of the ‘intangible’ effects of violent crime (e.g. the
anxiety suffered by potential victims or the pain and suffering imposed on actual
victims). Secondly, the authors review the growing number of contributions that
have begun the process of filling this gap through novel applications of nonmarket
valuation methods in a crime context. In particular, the findings of a
recent attempt to estimate the costs of categories of violent crime (of varying
levels of severity) in the United Kingdom using the contingent valuation method
are discussed. Whilst valuing the intangible costs of violent crime is a challenging
task, a more explicit assessment is needed not just to improve the transparency of
public decision-making but also to ensure that policy benefits of crime
prevention can be compared directly with the costs of implementation.
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