Centre for Children Committing Offences, Child Development Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Crim Behav Ment Health. 2023 Apr;33(2):106-115. doi: 10.1002/cbm.2283. Epub 2023 Mar 13.
Children and youth who are at risk of becoming early-onset life-course-persistent offenders often slip through the cracks of other systems in society (e.g., health, education, child welfare, substance use and mental health). When they do, they impose an enormous economic burden on society. Developmental crime prevention (DCP) programmes seek to reduce these costs through evidence-based interventions that target individual child and family risk and protective factors for antisocial behaviour.
This study reviewed cost-benefit analysis studies of DCP interventions to identify whether they produced monetary benefits that exceeded programme costs.
We searched the literature for studies of interventions that were evaluated using high-quality research methods (i.e., experimental or quasi-experimental designs). Key characteristics of these evaluations are summarised and benefit-to-cost ratios (BCRs) are reported.
Eleven cost-benefit analysis (CBA) evaluations met study criteria. The programmes varied in terms of who they targeted (e.g., pregnant mothers, at-risk youth), the age of participants (e.g., adults, children, older youth), the intervention duration (e.g., 10 weeks to 4 years), and the follow-up interval (e.g., 6 months to 50 years). Ten of the 11 studies produced favourable BCRs, ranging between 1.35 and 31.77, depending on the type and scope of outcomes that were monetised.
There is strong evidence in support of DCP from a cost-benefit perspective. However, given the small number of studies for analysis, more prospective longitudinal CBA evaluations are needed, in addition to greater consistency in the scope and methods that are used to monetise outcomes.
有早期生活轨迹持续犯罪倾向的儿童和青少年往往会从社会的其他系统（例如，健康、教育、儿童福利、药物使用和精神健康）中漏掉。当他们这样做时，他们会给社会带来巨大的经济负担。发展性犯罪预防（DCP）计划旨在通过针对反社会行为的个体儿童和家庭风险和保护因素的循证干预措施来降低这些成本。
本研究回顾了 DCP 干预措施的成本效益分析研究，以确定它们是否产生了超过计划成本的货币收益。
我们搜索了使用高质量研究方法（即实验或准实验设计）进行干预评估的研究。总结了这些评估的关键特征，并报告了收益成本比（BCR）。
有 11 项成本效益分析（CBA）评估符合研究标准。这些方案在目标人群（例如，孕妇、高危青年）、参与者年龄（例如，成年人、儿童、大龄青年）、干预持续时间（例如，10 周至 4 年）和随访间隔（例如，6 个月至 50 年）方面存在差异。11 项研究中有 10 项产生了有利的 BCR，范围在 1.35 到 31.77 之间，具体取决于货币化的结果类型和范围。
从成本效益的角度来看，DCP 有强有力的证据支持。然而，鉴于可用于分析的研究数量较少，除了更一致地使用范围和方法来货币化结果之外，还需要更多前瞻性纵向 CBA 评估。
