Economic Perspectives on Incarceration and the Criminal Justice System
"Calls for criminal justice reform have been mounting in recent years, in large part due to the extraordinarily high levels of incarceration in the United States. Today, the incarcerated population is 4.5 times larger than in 1980, with approximately 2.2 million people in the United States behind bars, including individuals in Federal and State prisons as well as local jails. The push for reform comes from many angles, from the high financial cost of maintaining current levels of incarceration to the humanitarian consequences of detaining more individuals than any other country.
Economic analysis is a useful lens for understanding the costs, benefits, and consequences of incarceration and other criminal justice policies. In this report, we first examine historical growth in criminal justice enforcement and incarceration along with its causes. We then develop a general framework for evaluating criminal justice policy, weighing its crime-reducing benefits against its direct government costs and indirect costs for individuals, families, and communities. Finally, we describe the Administration's holistic approach to criminal justice reform through policies that impact the community, the cell block, and the courtroom."
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Showing posts with label cost-benefit analysis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cost-benefit analysis. Show all posts
The price of prisons: what incarceration costs taxpayers.
Staff from Vera’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections and Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit developed a methodology to calculate the taxpayer cost of prisons, including costs outside states’ corrections budgets. Among the 40 states that participated in a survey, the cost of prisons was $39 billion in fiscal year 2010, $5.4 billion more than what their corrections budgets reflected. States’ costs outside their corrections departments ranged from less than 1 percent of total prison costs in Arizona to as much as 34 percent in Connecticut. The full report provides the taxpayer cost of incarcerating a sentenced adult offender to state prison in 40 states, presents the methodology, and concludes with recommendations about steps policy makers can take to safely rein in these costs. Fact sheets provide details about each of the states that participated in Vera’s survey.
Read on...
Read on...
What Cost-of-Crime Research Can Tell Us About Investing in Police
By: Paul Heaton
Many state and local governments are facing significant fiscal challenges, forcing policymakers to confront difficult trade-offs as they consider how to allocate scarce resources across numerous worthy initiatives. To achieve their policy priorities, it will become increasingly important for policymakers to concentrate resources on programs that can clearly demonstrate that they improve their constituents' quality of life. To identify such programs, cost/benefit analysis can be a powerful tool for objectively adjudicating the merits of particular programs. On the surface, all such programs aim to improve quality of life, but whether they actually achieve — or will achieve — what they aim for is another question. Summarizing the existing high-quality academic research on the cost of crime and the effectiveness of police in preventing crime, this paper familiarizes policymakers and practitioners with current research on these issues and demonstrates how this research can be used to better understand the returns to investments in police. It demonstrates a method for comparing the costs of police personnel with the expected benefits generated by those police in terms of reduced crime. Applying the method to several real-world scenarios shows that these investments generate net social benefits. Returns on investments in police personnel are likely to be substantial.
This report is from the Rand Corporation. Tom
One in Every 31 Adults in Prison; Prison Spending Outpaces All but Medicaid
One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation, at a cost to the states of $47 billion in 2008, according to a new study.
Correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data.
Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which quadrupled in the past two decades, according to the report today by the Pew Center on the States, the first breakdown of spending in confinement and supervision in the past seven years.
Read on...
Correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data.
Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which quadrupled in the past two decades, according to the report today by the Pew Center on the States, the first breakdown of spending in confinement and supervision in the past seven years.
Read on...
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of the Use of DNA in the Investigation of High-Volume Crimes
Author(s): John Roman, Shannon Reid, Jay Reid, Aaron Chalfin, William Adams, Carly KnightOther Availability: PDF Printer-Friendly PagePosted to Web: June 16, 2008Permanent Link: http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411697
The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the full report (2.40mb) in PDF format.
Abstract
The study compared traditional crime solving to biological evidence techniques in hundreds of cases where biological evidence was available. When conventional investigative techniques were used, a suspect was identified 12 percent of the time, compared to 31 percent of the cases using DNA evidence. In eight percent of cases built on traditional evidence alone a suspect was arrested, compared to the 16 percent arrest rate in DNA cases. The average added cost for processing a single case with DNA evidence was about $1,397. Each additional arrest—an arrest that would not have occurred without DNA processing—cost $14,169.
Read on...
Check out the whole report in the pdf at the above link. Tom
The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the full report (2.40mb) in PDF format.
Abstract
The study compared traditional crime solving to biological evidence techniques in hundreds of cases where biological evidence was available. When conventional investigative techniques were used, a suspect was identified 12 percent of the time, compared to 31 percent of the cases using DNA evidence. In eight percent of cases built on traditional evidence alone a suspect was arrested, compared to the 16 percent arrest rate in DNA cases. The average added cost for processing a single case with DNA evidence was about $1,397. Each additional arrest—an arrest that would not have occurred without DNA processing—cost $14,169.
Read on...
Check out the whole report in the pdf at the above link. Tom
Impact and Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Anchorage Wellness Court
Author(s): John Roman, Aaron Chalfin, Jay Reid, Shannon ReidOther Availability: PDF Printer-Friendly PagePosted to Web: August 06, 2008Permanent Link: http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411746
The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the full report in PDF format.
Abstract
Given all the recent news about Governor Palin I'm surprised there is something called a wellness court in Alaska. The full report is availble in pdf at the above link. Tom
The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the full report in PDF format.
Abstract
The primary goal of this research is to estimate the costs and benefits of serving misdemeanor DUI offenders in the Anchorage Wellness Court (AWC), a specialized court employing principles of therapeutic jurisprudence. The Urban Institute conducted an impact and a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to estimate the effectiveness of the AWC. The study focused on the impact of the program on reducing the prevalence and incidence of new criminal justice system contact. Costs were collected to estimate the opportunity cost of the AWC. Recidivism variables were monetized to estimate the benefits from crime reductions. Outcomes were observed at 24, 30, 36, and 48 months.
Given all the recent news about Governor Palin I'm surprised there is something called a wellness court in Alaska. The full report is availble in pdf at the above link. Tom
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