100 billion dollars. That is the annual cost of gun violence in America according to the authors of this landmark study, a book destined to change the way Americans view the problem of gun-related violence. Until now researchers have assessed the burden imposed by gunshot injuries and deaths in terms of medical costs and lost productivity. Here, economists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig widen the lens, developing a framework to calculate the full costs borne by Americans in a society where both gun violence and its ever-present threat mandate responses that touch every aspect of our lives. All of us, no matter where we reside or how we live, share the costs of gun violence. Whether waiting in line to pass through airport security or paying taxes for the protection of public officials; whether buying a transparent book bag for our children to meet their school's post-Columbine regulations or subsidizing an urban trauma center, the steps we take are many and the expenditures enormous. Cook and Ludwig reveal that investments in prevention, avoidance, and harm reduction, both public and private, constitute a far greater share of the gun-violence burden than previously recognized. They also employ extensive survey data to measure the subjective costs of living in a society where there is risk of being shot or losing a loved one or neighbor to gunfire. At the same time, they demonstrate that the problem of gun violence is not intractable. Their review of the available evidence suggests that there are both additional gun regulations and targeted law enforcement measures that will help. This urgently needed book documents for the first time how gun violence diminishes the quality of life for everyone in America. In doing so, it will move the debate over gun violence past symbolic politics to a direct engagement with the costs and benefits of policies that hold promise for reducing gun violence and may even pay for themselves.

The Encyclopedia of RESEARCH METHODS IN CRIMINOLOGY & CRIMINAL JUSTICE The most comprehensive reference work on research designs and methods in criminology and criminal justice This Encyclopedia of Research Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice offers a comprehensive survey of research methodologies and statistical techniques that are popular in criminology and criminal justice systems across the globe. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in the field, it offers a clear insight into the techniques that are currently in use to answer the pressing questions in criminology and criminal justice. The Encyclopedia contains essential information from a diverse pool of authors about research designs grounded in both qualitative and quantitative approaches. It includes information on popular datasets and leading resources of government statistics. In addition, the contributors cover a wide range of topics such as: the most current research on the link between guns and crime, rational choice theory, and the use of technology like geospatial mapping as a crime reduction tool. This invaluable reference work: Offers a comprehensive survey of international research designs, methods, and statistical techniques Includes contributions from leading figures in the field Contains data on criminology and criminal justice from Cambridge to Chicago Presents information on capital punishment, domestic violence, crime science, and much more Helps us to better understand, explain, and prevent crime Written for undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers, The Encyclopedia of Research Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice is the first reference work of its kind to offer a comprehensive review of this important topic.

Measuring the social and economic costs of violence can be difficult, and most estimates only consider direct economic effects, such as productivity loss or the use of health care services. Communities and societies feel the effects of violence through loss of social cohesion, financial divestment, and the increased burden on the healthcare and justice systems. Initial estimates show that early violence prevention intervention has economic benefits. The IOM Forum on Global Violence Prevention held a workshop to examine the successes and challenges of calculating direct and indirect costs of violence, as well as the potential cost-effectiveness of intervention.

The mental suffering and agony, the ruined lives, the broken homes and hearts, the desolation and yearning and despair – who can measure the cost of crime? Eugene Smith, 1901 The anxiety people feel towards another people – the fear of crime – lies at the foundations of human society. The enormous burden that crime imposes on societies calls for ef?cient social arrangements and institutions. While intuitively obvious, the exact scope of this burden for a long time eluded measurement. With the emergence and development of quantitative methods in economics and statistics, the exercise of calculating costs of crime became possible, and indeed has been undertaken. The emerging ?eld of assessing costs of crime is still a controversial one, both in its methodology and applications. Many people would feel it absurd to calculate costs of crimes, particularly violent ones. What is a cost of murder, rape, or assault? Can any number meaningfully represent the villainous nature of such acts? These questions are undoubtedly good ones. In this book, I will argue that we can estimate costs of different crimes, and that such estimates are relevant for criminal law and crime policy. Notwithstanding the incommensurability of many consequences of crime, society every day makes numerous decisions how to tackle crime, and at least implicitly assesses the relative importance of the problem. Properly done costs of crime estimates make people’s evaluation more visible, and allow for more coherent public policy.

This book presents a comprehensive view of the financial and non-financial consequences of criminal behavior, crime prevention, and society’s response to crime. Crime costs are far-reaching, including medical costs, lost wages, property damage and pain, suffering, and reduced quality of life for victims and the public at large; police, courts, and prisons; and offenders and their families who may suffer consequences incidental to any punishment they receive for committing crime. The book provides a comprehensive economic framework and overview of the empirical methodologies used to estimate costs of crime. It provides an assessment of what is known and where the gaps in knowledge are in understanding the costs and consequences of crime. Individual chapters focus on victims, governments, as well as the public at large. Separate chapters detail the various methodologies used to estimate crime costs, while two chapters are devoted to policy analysis – both cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost analysis. The second edition is completely updated and expanded since the first edition in 2005. All cost estimates have also been updated. In addition, due to a significant increase in the number of studies on the cost of crime, new chapters focus on the costs to offenders and their families; white-collar and corporate crime; and the cost of crime estimates around the world. Understanding the costs of crime can lead to important insights and policy conclusions – both for criminal justice policy and other social ills that compete with crime for government funding. Thus, the target audience for this book includes criminologists and policy makers who are seeking to apply rigorous social science methods to assist in developing appropriate criminal justice policies. Note that the book is non-technical and does not assume the reader is conversant in economics or statistics.

This title presents a survey of the crime problem in Latin America, which takes a very broad and appropriately reductionist approach to analyse the determinants of the high crime levels, focusing on the negative social conditions in the region, including inequality and poverty, and poor policy design, such as relatively low police presence. The chapters illustrate three channels through which crime might generate poverty, that is, by reducing investment, by introducing assets losses, and by reducing the value of assets remaining in the control of households.

The Cost of Crime provides estimates of the annual cost of crime in the United States. A better understanding of the repercussions of crime could guide the prioritization of law enforcement, education, and social programs that deter criminal activity. Traditional measures of criminal activity count crimes or estimate direct costs that typically include the costs of policing, corrections, criminal justice, and replacing stolen merchandise. This study estimates the burden of a broad set of crime's repercussions, both direct and indirect, to tell a more complete story. This study places less emphasis on imprecise counts of crimes than most previous measures of crime's burden. The comprehensive approach adopted here captures several types of cost shifting that can result from crime prevention efforts. The inclusion of private crime prevention expenditures in this study captures the potential for public expenditures to reduce total societal outlays for crime, with or without a decrease in the crime rate. The comprehensive scope of this study also accounts for regional shifts in crime. This study examines costs for the entire nation, which accounts for the possibility of losses in one region of the United States substituting for losses in another. For the purposes of this research, the cost of crime is defined to include all costs that would not exist in the absence of illegal behavior under current law. The benchmark in this study is perfect compliance with the law. The Cost of Crime speaks to the benefits of cooperation and ethical behavior. In the ideal state of voluntary legal compliance, there would be no need for expenditures on crime prevention, no costly repercussions of criminal acts, and no losses due to fear and distrust. We will not reach that ideal state, but with knowledge of the full cost of crime, we also know the benefit of eliminating a more realistic fraction of that cost. Valid questions remain regarding the inclusion of particular cost components in the calculation of crime's burden. The approach here is to sidestep unsolvable debates by providing itemized lists of crime-cost elements. This enables the reader to adopt customized formulations for the cost of crime.