URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Raising the Age of Juvenile Jurisdiction John K. Roman, Ph.D. Justice Policy Center The Urban Institute North Carolina Youth Accountability Planning Task Force March 18, 2010 Raleigh, NC

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Designing A Cost-Benefit Study 1.Defining the Scope 2.Estimating Direct Costs to the Juvenile System 3.Estimating Direct Savings to the Adult Criminal Justice System 4.Estimating Changes in Criminal Behavior and Costs/Benefits to Society from the Proposed Change

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Designing the Study Key issue is to determine who has standing, e.g. whose costs and benefits will count. Typical approach is to measure net social benefit, rather than return on investment. –Advantage is that it includes changes in victimization; –Disadvantage is that much of the savings is outside of the state’s budget. Typically, costs and benefits to youth are excluded.

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Estimating Direct Costs Costs are a function of Price X Quantity. Estimates are developed in three steps: 1.Identify Elements to be priced; 2.Identify Prices; 3.Estimate Quantities.

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Estimating Direct Costs First, are there any capital expenditures that will result (e.g. construction of a new training school?). If not, next step is to identify prices of operating expenses including: Per diem cost of state supervision: incarceration, parole, probation, training school etc. Per staff FTE cost of court and other personnel.

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Estimating Direct Costs Next, determine if these expenses change if they are transferred from an adult court to a juvenile court (e.g., do clerks in both courts average the same wages). For Connecticut, we assumed no difference. Total Benefit will be the difference between new costs of processing and supervising more youth and reductions in recidivism. Prior research shows that juveniles commit fewer new crimes when they are released from a juvenile facility rather than an adult facility. Thus there are savings down the road as fewer court and correctional resources are consumed.

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Estimating Indirect Costs and Benefits Total Cost of Supervising More Youth Estimate the number of juvenile arrests for 16 and 17 year- olds. Estimate the probability of a judicial decision and the probability of a sentence to determine the number of youth at each stage in the process (the quantities). Estimate the probability of incarceration, probation, parole, training school etc. All estimates are done separately for the crime committed. Multiply by number of days under supervision and sum for total adult and juvenile costs of youth supervision.

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Estimating Indirect Costs and Benefits Social Benefits of Reduced Recidivism Next, estimate the number of prevented crimes from juvenile processing of 16 and 17 year-olds. Fagan (1995) found youth in New York has a 29 percent reduction in recidivism, so all estimates from line 5 are reduced by 29 percent. Multiple the price of victimization for each crime type by the number of prevented crimes to estimate social benefits from lower recidivism. Estimate the probability of incarceration, probation, parole, training school etc.

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Estimating Indirect Costs and Benefits Total Cost of Processing More Youth Finally, estimate the additional processing costs for each actor in the juvenile justice system who processes the additional youth. Multiple the number of newly served youth by the cost of each contact. Then, sum all the effects. Savings are equal to: Total cost of supervising more youth - Social benefits from reduced offending + total costs of processing more youth

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Estimating Net Benefits General approach is to sum benefits and costs and take the difference. We conducted sensitivity analyses to test one assumption that had the greatest bearing on the final estimate – how many recidivism events were prevented. The most conservative estimate was that only one event per person was prevented. However, many youth in this cohort are high rate offenders so we also modeled 2 events, and the number of events predicted by external data (UCR).

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Victims Costs of Serious Crime

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Victims Cost of Other Felonies

URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Estimate of the Social Cost of Misdemeanors