Survey Finds That Crimes Cost $450 Billion a Year - New York... http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/22/us/survey-finds-that-crime...

U.S.
Survey Finds That Crimes Cost $450 Billion a Year
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
Published: April 22, 1996

Crime costs Americans at least $450 billion a year, according to the most comprehensive survey ever done on the price of violence.

The report, done for the Justice Department, is the first to try to measure the cost of child abuse and domestic violence along with crimes like
murder, rape and robbery. It is also the first to estimate the mental health care costs and the reduced quality of life for victims of crime.

The report calculates out-of-pocket costs covering items like legal fees, lost work time and the cost of police work as well as intangibles, like the
affection lost for a murder victim's family. The authors devised a formula for the intangibles.

The study excludes the cost of running the nation's prisons, jails and parole and probation systems, which would add $40 billion, bringing the
total annual cost of crime to almost $500 billion, according to other Justice Department statistics. By comparison, the Defense Department's
budget for 1995 is $252.6 billion.

"The estimate of $450 billion for crime is an amazing number which tells us just how heavy a burden that crime and the fear of crime place on
our society," said Representative Charles E. Schumer of Brooklyn, the ranking Democratic member of the House Subcommittee on Crime.

"This report could change the debate" on crime, Mr. Schumer said, "because it shows that while most people think a $1 billion anti-crime
program is a large number, it's really just a drop in the bucket."

The most important thing about the study, Mr. Schumer said, "is that it shows the cost of not doing anything" is much higher than any proposed
anti-crime programs, like putting more police on the street, building more prisons or spending for violence prevention.

The report, "Victim Costs and Consequences: A New Look," was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Justice
Department.

While the report has been praised by a number of academic specialists and law-enforcement authorities, others have raised questions about the
methodology used in calculating the intangible costs like the value of a murder victim's life.

Representative Bill McCollum, Republican of Florida, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime, agreed with Mr. Schumer, saying the
report "demonstrates that the cost of building prisons and adding police are justified, in terms of the cost to our society." He said this was true
even though many state governments were running out of money to build new prisons.

Mr. McCollum said the figures were worrisome "because they don't even take into account the new crime wave we expect over the next 10 years"
as the number of teen-agers increases by 20 percent. While homicide rates among adults have been falling over the past decade, they have more
than doubled among youths under 18 years old.

The authors of the new report make no recommendations on the best mix of measures to control crime. But they point out that ignoring the
intangible benefits of crime reduction "can lead to a misallocation of resources."

The average rape, for example, incurs "out-of-pocket costs" to the victim of $5,100, far less than the $20,000 annual cost of a prison cell, the
authors said. But when the rape's effect on the victim's quality of life is calculated, the cost soars to $87,000, many times greater than the price of
a prison cell, the study concludes.

Mark A. Cohen, one of the three authors and an associate professor at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management, said
another study he had done found that longer prison sentences would be a cost-effective way to reduce rape, assault and automobile theft but not
burglary and robbery. Building more prisons for burglars and robbers would cost more than the savings society would achieve from a reduction
in the crimes, he said.

"We would like to do away with crime, but society cannot afford a zero crime rate," said Professor Cohen, an economist. It would require so many
prisons, he said, "We would bankrupt ourselves and we'd also have a society we wouldn't like."

The other authors of the report are Ted R. Miller, associate director of the National Public Services Research Institute in Landover, Md., and
Brian Wiersema, research coordinator for the Violence Research Group at the University of Maryland.

Some experts expressed skepticism about the $450 billion figure put forward in the report and had doubts about its methodology.

Alfred Blumstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said the report was "one more piece of shooting at a very-tough-to-get-at number."
But he said the $450-billion-a-year estimate "is unreasonably high," giving too much weight to intangible factors like pain, suffering and
reduction in the quality of life.

Professor Blumstein, a leading criminologist, and some other specialists expressed concern that the very high estimate made it easier to justify
building expensive prisons and handing out longer sentences.

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Survey Finds That Crimes Cost $450 Billion a Year - New York... http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/22/us/survey-finds-that-crime...

He also said it was very difficult to calculate the benefits of violence prevention programs. While the costs of crime are incurred now, he said, "we
cannot see the benefits of prevention programs for 5 to 10 years" or know how many crimes will be averted.

"The public and politicians demand immediate gratification, so there is considerable push for being tough with more mandatory sentences,"
Professor Blumstein said. "As a result," he said, "we have largely abandoned prevention and rehabilitation efforts for juveniles," which has
contributed to the rapid growth of violent crime among teen-agers.

Among other findings in the report were these:

*Child abuse and domestic violence account for about one-third of the total annual costs of crime, a far higher figure than previous estimates.
This does not include future costs that are likely to mount as children who have been physically or sexually abused perpetuate a cycle of violence.

*Violent crime causes 3 percent of medical spending and 14 percent of injury-related medical spending. Crime also accounts for as much as 10 to
20 percent of mental health care expenditures.

*Intangible costs, like lost quality of life, are by far the largest cost component for crimes of violence, the authors claim, though they are also the
most difficult to measure and therefore subject to the most debate. The study places the "lost quality of life" for a murder victim and his family at
$1.9 million, while the average cost of police investigation into a murder is only $1,400.

The report calculated the out-of-pocket costs of crime at $105 billion annually, including medical bills, property losses, lost earnings and
programs for victim assistance.

To measure the intangible costs of crime, including pain, suffering and lost quality of life, the authors adopted figures from jury awards to crime
victims and other statistical studies of the value of life, in addition to including the cost of mental care.

In a separate study by Professor Cohen, now being prepared for the Justice Department, he found that preventing a "high risk" young person in a
poor neighborhood from a troubled family from turning into a juvenile delinquent and adult criminal would save the country $1.5 million to $2
million.

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