Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Clinical Research Building, Miami, FL 33136, USA.
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2010 Apr 1;108(1-2):98-109. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2009.12.002. Epub 2010 Jan 13.
Estimating the cost to society of individual crimes is essential to the economic evaluation of many social programs, such as substance abuse treatment and community policing. A review of the crime-costing literature reveals multiple sources, including published articles and government reports, which collectively represent the alternative approaches for estimating the economic losses associated with criminal activity. Many of these sources are based upon data that are more than 10 years old, indicating a need for updated figures. This study presents a comprehensive methodology for calculating the cost to society of various criminal acts. Tangible and intangible losses are estimated using the most current data available. The selected approach, which incorporates both the cost-of-illness and the jury compensation methods, yields cost estimates for more than a dozen major crime categories, including several categories not found in previous studies. Updated crime cost estimates can help government agencies and other organizations execute more prudent policy evaluations, particularly benefit-cost analyses of substance abuse treatment or other interventions that reduce crime.
估算个体犯罪对社会造成的成本对于许多社会项目的经济评估至关重要，如药物滥用治疗和社区警务。对犯罪成本研究文献的回顾揭示了多个来源，包括已发表的文章和政府报告，这些报告共同代表了估算与犯罪活动相关的经济损失的替代方法。其中许多来源所依据的数据都超过了 10 年，表明需要更新数据。本研究提出了一种全面的方法来计算各种犯罪行为对社会造成的成本。有形和无形损失是使用最新可用数据估算的。所选择的方法结合了疾病成本和陪审团赔偿方法，为十多个主要犯罪类别估算了成本，其中包括以前的研究中没有发现的几个类别。更新的犯罪成本估算可以帮助政府机构和其他组织进行更谨慎的政策评估，特别是对减少犯罪的药物滥用治疗或其他干预措施的收益成本分析。
