International
Counting the Costs of Crime in Australia
This paper assesses some of the major costs for a range of offences in Australia, updating previous work on crime costs published by the Australian Institute of Criminology in 1992 and 1997. It uses more up-to-date figures and includes some additional costs, resulting in a total estimate for the crimes covered of $32 billion each year.
Title: Counting the Costs of Crime in Australia
Author: Pat Mayhew with assistance from Glenda Adkins
Series: Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice
Number of pages: 8 pages
Date published: April 2003
The costing principles used include estimates of medical costs, lost output, intangible costs, and transfer of resources. Although they cover a wide range of crimes, some crimes are not dealt with in detail because of the lack of data and may only give an overall figure. Others, such as kidnapping, blackmail, and good order offences are not included because there is little data on the number of incidents or their costs. Full details of the methodology and calculations used are published in Technical Report No 4: Counting the Costs of Crime in Australia, in order to make the basis of the estimates transparent. This will also allow for easier updating of estimates of costs when new information becomes available.
The main report puts the overall estimated figure for crime in Australia at some $32 billion a year, made up of $19 billion for the crimes covered and $13 billion for other costs such as policing, prisons and the security industry. Examples of some of the individual crimes are: homicide at $1.6 million per incident, robbery at $3,600 per incident, residential burglary at $2,000 per incident and shoplifting at $110 per incident. It also looks briefly at costs of victim assistance, security, household precautions, insurance and lost productivity from prisoners.
In the absence of some Australian data, the authors have used guideline figures from a UK study, The Economic and Social Costs of Crime, published in 2000. This is considered reasonable given the similarity of the crime profile of the two countries and is detailed in the technical report.
Although there are many difficulties in assessing crime costs, it is important to get a bearing on them because they set the context for the substantial resources spent trying to prevent crime and deal with offenders. They give a better basis for assessing where crime prevention efforts are best targeted and are essential for cost-benefit analysis where the costs of crime reduction initiatives are set against savings made from crimes prevented.
The paper notes that further work is needed to provide more accurate data on the number of crimes to be costed, better information on the costs of victimisation in terms of property loss and time off work, more Australian information on the intangible costs of crime and which costing methodology produces the most sensible estimates, and better cost estimates for newer forms of crime such as people smuggling.
Download the full paper, No 247 Counting the Costs of Crime in Australia 
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Download the technical report, No 4 Counting the Costs of Crime in Australia PDF 303 Kb
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Thanks to the European Crime Prevention Network (EU CPN) for highlighting this publication
Last update: Tuesday, November 28, 2006