Economic and Social Cost of Crime Crime and Justice User Day Joe Perman: Assistant Economist, Scottish Government Economic and Social Cost of Crime Application in Criminal Careers

Purpose What data we use What we use the cost estimates for Total costs – useful to know?? Value for money of interventions e.g Who should we target with limited resources What else could we be doing?

Data sources Economic and Social Costs of Crime Scottish Crime and Justice Survey Reconviction Rates in Scotland Police Recorded and Cleared Up Crime Criminal Proceedings in Scottish Courts About taking estimates from England and Wales, and applying them to Scottish offending data to estimate the economic and social costs of crime To show you the range of data we use

Anticipation Consequence Response Economic and Social Costs of Crime Security Insurance Consequence Property, lost output, health services, emotional and physical impact Response Criminal Justice System (courts, police, prisons, etc)

Multipliers We may have data on the number of police recorded crime or convictions – but we are interested in the actual incidence of crime i.e. including those which are not reported or recorded for various reasons

CONVICTION RATE CLEAR-UP RATE POLICE RECORDED CRIME RATE ACTUAL CRIME RATE

1 2 4 1 3 4 9 388 SERIOUS ASSAULT SHOPLIFTING

How we get there Charges proved from Criminal Proceedings Police clear up rate Police recorded crimes Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (and business surveys, research)

Table of multipliers and costs Crime/offence group Scotland crime/Offence name Conviction Cleared up Recorded Actual incidence Unit cost (£2010/11) Non-sexual crimes of violence Murder 1 £ 1,736,998 Serious assault 2 3 11 £ 25,504 Robbery and assault with intent to rob 5 6 £ 8,670 Other non-sexual crimes of violence 14 £ 9,591 Crimes of indecency Rape & attempted rape 17 31 176 £ 83,487 Indecent assault etc 7 12 116 £ 31,111 Other crimes of indecency £ 2,137 Crimes of dishonesty Housebreaking 4 16 36 £ 3,891 Theft by OLP 20 63 £ 755 Theft by from a motor vehicle (OLP) 70 £ 1,022 Theft of a motor vehicle & contents including taking & driving 8 18 19 £ 4,927 Theft by shoplifting 61 £ 131 Other theft 23 Other crimes of dishonesty 13 Fire-raising, vandalism etc Fire-raising 25 148 £ 1,031 Vandalism, etc 138 Miscellaneous offences Minor assault £ 6,913 Minor assault of an emergency worker £ 1,714 Breach of the peace Drunkenness Other miscellaneous offences Other crimes Crimes against public justice Handling an offensive weapon Drugs

An assumption too far? Multipliers fine at population level analysis, but what about small samples? Individuals? One conviction of housebreaking means we guess that person has actually broke into 9 Some people better at not getting caught? No control group – we are assuming that without intervention offending frequency would have remained at average rate seen over pre-intervention comparison period. However, offending may continued to increase, or project may have intervened at peak of offending and it would have naturally fallen anyway. Also, overall crime has been falling (x%), should this have been this control group?

Applications Total Cost of Crime Value for Money of Criminal Interventions Reducing Reoffending Project Presumption against short term sentences Criminal careers Males, females, under/over 21 Persistent offenders vs long term prisoners

Total costs - Tree plot Based on police recorded crimes Miscellaneous offences Crimes of indecency Crimes of dishonesty Crimes of violence Other crimes Vandalism and fire-raising Based on police recorded crimes

Breakdown of the costs of crime This is taken from a wider analysis of the total costs of crime in Scotland. Used to illustrate the breakdown between in the economic and social costs and their relative magnitude. Wont be the exact same because of offence mix. The criminal justice system costs are nearly 50% police costs, with the next highest being prisons at around 20%. savings to the CJS £2.5 million Savings to wider society £8 million

Value for money of Criminal Justice Interventions Ex-Post – evaluating interventions Ex-Ante – using historical offending data to look at “what if” scenarios Both aimed at identifying the value for money in policies aimed at reducing reoffending based on the costs of crime and therefore the potential savings from reducing it Costs of offending – and subsequent savings of reduced offending. Doesn’t look at other benefits – quality of life of offenders, employment opportunities, health, social services etc

Persistent Offenders Project Decrease from 2,800 to 1,900 --> 32% fall

Persistent Offenders Project – Pre and post intervention crime rates

Persistent Offenders Project - Total Costs Cost of crime Before After Savings £30 million £19 million £11 million Project Cost = £1million over the 3 years  NET BENEFITS of £10 million

illustrative!! we are not implying causality use the estimates to illustrate the potential savings available Magnitudes, rather than pounds and pence Should be used in conjunction with other quantitative and qualitative data

Presumption against short sentences Don’t know the impact on reoffending by moving someone from custodial sentence to community sentence Differing characteristics etc Use breakeven analysis to find the reducing in offending needed to balance out the increased costs Increased costs Incarceration effect – not locked up so still able to offend

Reoffending Rates/Frequencies Reconviction rate over time Average annual number of reconvictions Frequency gives much better information than just the binary yes/no

Custodial Cohort Costs This is illustrated below in Figure 3 for the 3,262 annual unique offenders who are given short custodial sentences. The economic and social costs of reoffending for this cohort begin at almost £250 million in the first year and fall to around £75 million by year 10 as the average level of reoffending decreases. We can compare these ‘do nothing’ costs against the costs of a policy bringing about a change in sentencing and reoffending behaviour and use the difference to estimate any resulting costs and savings.

£6m 1% over a ten-year period, it only takes a marginal reduction in the frequency of reoffending (1%) for the increased costs of the change in sentencing behaviour to be balanced by the longer-term savings from reduced crime If offending reduced to levels of current community sentences we find that potential net benefits increase in each year, reaching a steady state level of nearly £290 million per annum after 10 years. Community sentences £4.25 million Custodial sentences £2.5 million Incarceration effect £4.25 million Net Costs £6 million per annum

Criminal Careers Follow cohort over 10 years using unit level conviction data Split by age and gender to start with Only looking at the ‘average’ across each cohort, will be differing distinct ‘types’ within each groups

Criminal Careers Frequency of convictions

Cost of Reoffending After applying MULTIPLIERS and unit costs

Average cost per offence

Persistent versus long term Where should we focus limited resources The ‘serious’, high tariff long term prisoners are an easy target But what about the harder segment, low tariff, persistent offenders?

Frequency of convictions

Average cost per offender

Cost as a proxy for seriousness

Average cost per offender Average per offender Number in segment Prolific (3 previous) £ 180,000 20,365 Very short term (< 6 months) £ 277,000 4,139 Long term (> 4 years) £ 147,000 401 Long termers low average cost because already spend lots of money on them?? Bit far fetched.

Size does matter? Prolific (3+ previous) Very short termers £3.9 billion Very short termers £1.1 billion Long termers £59 million Violence Dishonesty Damage Other Sexual When add in size of of target segment, the total Questions: those with 3 or more convictions will no doubt pass through prison at some point so is it nearly just same group. Where would be the best place to target them. Spread resources too thinly?

What next?? Defining the segments? Where else could you see cost estimates being used? ???