Cost-Benefit Analysis and Crime Control

Criminal justice programs, to be adopted in today's climate, need demonstrate not only efficacy but return on tax dollars invested. Cost-benefit analysis, the economist's tool for determining the price of outcomes, yields a single metric that allows different interventions to be compared directly. Yet CBA is difficult, even controversial, to apply to crime control, as it involves placing monetary value on intangibles such as pain, suffering, well-being, and human life. Cost-Benefit Analysis and Crime Control guides researchers through cost collection, design of bias-free studies, measurement of effects, approaches to estimating program benefits, and methods for combining the elements into a unified analysis.

John K. Roman is a senior research associate in the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute where his research focuses on evaluations of innovative crime control policies and justice programs. He is also the executive director of the District of Columbia Crime Policy Institute where he directs research on crime and justice matters on behalf of the Executive Office of the Mayor. Dr. Roman is directing studies of the use of DNA to aid law enforcement investigations, rates of wrongful conviction, prisoner reentry, drug courts, and the social benefit of informal social controls of postal carriers. He is coeditor with Jeffrey A. Butts of Juvenile Drug Courts and Teen Substance Abuse (Urban Institute Press, 2004) and has authored dozens of scholarly articles and book chapters. Dr. Roman also serves as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and an affiliated professor at Georgetown University.Terence Dunworth, Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute, is past director of the UI’s Justice Policy Center. Dr. Dunworth, formerly managing vice president of Abt Associates Inc.’s Law and Public Policy Area, has directed evaluations of many national programs, including the Byrne Formula Grant Program, the Weed and Seed program, and the Youth Firearms Violence Initiative. Before joining Abt Associates, he was senior operations research specialist in the Social Policy Department at RAND. He also has served as a consultant to, among others, the World Bank and the states of California and Michigan for criminal justice programs and planning. Dr. Dunworth earned his Ph.D. in political science fromMichigan State University.Kevin Marsh is a director and chief economist at the Matrix Knowledge Group, with responsibility for economic evaluations of public policy, in particular criminal justice and public health interventions. He completed his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Bath. Dr. Marsh joined Matrix in 2003 following a year at the Social Disadvantage Research Centre at Oxford University. His research interests are in methods for the economic evaluations of public policy. He has undertaken economic evaluations on behalf of European and UK-based clients including the European Commission, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health, and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. He is an active member of the Campbell and Cochrane Economic Methods Group.