This webinar discussed victim costs and methods for estimating them. Tina Stanford from the New York State Office of Victim Services outlined tangible costs like medical expenses and intangible costs like pain and suffering. Kathryn McCollister from the University of Miami described methods like cost-of-illness and willingness-to-pay that can place dollar values on victim costs. These cost estimates are important for cost-benefit analyses of criminal justice programs and policies to fully account for the impacts of crime. The webinar provided examples of estimating costs for specific crimes like robbery.
1. Demystifying Victim Costs
July 25, 2011
Tina Stanford, Director, New York State Office of Victim Services
Kathryn McCollister, Assistant Professor, University of Miami, School of Medicine
Valerie Levshin, Policy Analyst, Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit, Vera Institute of Justice
Slide 1
3. Demystifying Victim Costs
Tina Stanford Kathryn McCollister Valerie Levshin
Director Assistant Professor Policy Analyst
NYS Office of University of Miami Vera Institute of
Victim Services School of Medicine Justice
Slide 3
4. Why Examine Victim Costs
• The justice system seeks to
prevent and address
victimization and its
consequences
• Analysis of criminal justice programs and policies
has to account for victim costs
Slide 4
5. Today’s Agenda
The Role of Victim Costs in Cost-Benefit 5 minutes
Analysis
Overview of Victim Costs 15 minutes
Methods for Estimating Victim Costs 15 minutes
Discussion and Q & A 20 minutes
Slide 5
6. Housekeeping items
Questions
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questions at any time during the webinar.
We will address your questions after
each section of the presentation.
Slide 6
7. Housekeeping items
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Slide 7
8. The Role of Victim Costs in
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Valerie Levshin
Policy Analyst
Vera Institute of Justice
Slide 8
9. What is Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA)?
• A tool to assess the pros and
cons of policies and programs
• A method for finding out what
will achieve the greatest net
benefit to society
• An approach to policymaking
Slide 9
10. CBA in Five Steps
1. Determine the impact of the initiative
2. Determine whose perspectives matter
3. Measure costs
4. Measure benefits (in dollars)
5. Compare costs and benefits
Slide 10
11. The Role of Victim Costs in a CBA
• Crime imposes costs on victims
• If a program or policy affects crime, CBA needs to
account for victim costs
• If it increases crime, measure the victim costs
• If it decreases crime, measure the victim benefits
(avoided victim costs)
Slide 11
12. Measuring Victim Costs?
• Placing a dollar value on rape? Murder?
• Is it possible?
• Is it ethical?
• Is it necessary?
Slide 12
13. Research Progress
• Researchers have
developed methods to
measure the monetary and
the non-monetary victim
costs
• These estimates can be
used in CBA and other
analyses
Slide 13
14. Why It Matters
• Measuring victim costs helps measure the full
benefits of programs and policies that reduce crime,
and compare them to costs
• Brings victims’
perspectives into the
conversation on policy and
budget decisions.
Slide 14
15. Overview of Victim Costs
Tina Stanford
Director
NY Office of Victim Services
Slide 15
16. New York State Office of Victim Services
• Compensates victims for
out-of-pocket expenses
• Funds community-based
services for victims
• Advocates for victims’
rights
Slide 16
17. Why Measure Victim Costs in Policy
Analysis?
• To educate criminal justice professionals and
policymakers on victimization costs
• To justify increased funding for crime prevention
initiatives
• To understand the importance of restitution and
compensation
Slide 17
18. Monetary (Tangible) Victim Costs
• Medical expenses
• Counseling services
• Essential personal property
• Lost earnings
Slide 18
19. Monetary (Tangible) Victim Costs
• Transportation to court
appearances
• Crime scene cleanup
• Moving expenses
• Occupational rehabilitation
expenses
• Cost of services of domestic violence shelter
• Burial expenses
Slide 19
21. Case Study #1: Physical Injury Claim
• Child sexual abuse
• Over $200,000 to date
• Dissociative Identity Disorder
• In-patient and out-patient counseling
Slide 21
22. Case Study #2: Personal Property Claim
• Petit Larceny
• Claimant over 60
• Over $900 for boxspring and mattress
• Over $800 for suitcase of clothing
• $1,000 deductible
• $500 maximum paid
Slide 22
24. Methods for Estimating
Victim Costs
Kathryn McCollister
Assistant Professor
University of Miami, School of Medicine
Slide 24
25. Health Economics Research Group
(HERG) at the University of Miami
• Members include health economics faculty
from departments of Sociology, Epidemiology
and Public Health, and affiliated institutions
• Conducts research on the economics of:
• substance abuse treatment and prevention
• HIV/AIDS
• criminal justice programs
• mental health
• other
Slide 25
26. Background
• 2010 Study: The cost of crime to society: New crime-
specific estimates for policy and program evaluation.
• Measured the main components of the societal cost of
crime:
Criminal justice system costs
Crime career costs
Victim costs
Slide 26
27. Victim Costs
• Our 2010 study estimated the
societal cost of crime
including victim costs across
13 offenses.
• Crime cost estimates are used to measure the
economic impact of substance abuse treatment and
crime prevention programs.
Slide 27
28. Costs Included in the Study
Monetary Non-Monetary
(Tangible) Costs (Intangible) Costs
medical care pain and suffering
lost wages decreased quality of life
property loss/damage psychological distress
cash losses
counseling
risk-of-homicide
(lifetime earnings)
Slide 28
29. Why Include Intangible Costs?
• True societal impact of crimes such as aggravated
assault, rape/sexual assault, and robbery would be
underestimated if intangible victim losses were not
included.
• Direct/tangible costs only account for 12 – 47% of
total crime costs for these offenses.
Slide 29
31. Cost-of-Illness Method
• Used to measures tangible victim costs
• Tangible victim cost per crime =
total national cost / number of crimes
• Department of Justice collects data on medical
expenses, cash losses, property theft/damage, and
lost earnings for 6 crime categories.
• Federal Emergency Management Agency collects data
on arson-related damages.
• Bureau of Justice Statistics collects data on the
number of crime in each category
Slide 31
32. Cost-of-Illness Method (cont)
• Mental health costs
• Cohen & Miller (1998) surveyed mental health care
professionals about treatment provided to patients
that had been victims of crime
• Estimated value of counseling/treatment by victims
per offense
Slide 32
33. Cost-of-Illness Method (cont)
• Risk-of-homicide costs
• Multiply the probability that a certain type of offense
will lead to a homicide by individuals’ average
lifetime earnings
• Lifetime earnings used to value lost life
Slide 33
34. Jury Compensation Method
• Used to measure intangible (pain and suffering)
costs
• Intangible cost = jury award – tangible cost
• Tangible costs here included medical expenses and
lost wages.
• Study measured intangible costs for 4 categories:
murder, rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated
assault
Slide 34
35. Jury Compensation Method
• Jury awards are for injuries, not for crimes,
• But, we can link the two based on probability of
sustaining typical crime-related injuries such as
broken bones, gun shot wounds, etc.
• National Crime Victimization Surveys report per
offense probability of an injury resulting from crime
• Intangible cost per crime =
probability of an injury per crime x
intangible award per injury
Slide 35
36. Willingness-to-Pay Method
• Measures intangible costs
• Estimates society’s willingness to pay to avoid a
victimization by survey
• Survey of more than 1,000 residents revealed that the
average household is willing to pay $100-$150 to
reduce serious crimes by 10% in their area.
• rape/sexual assault $286,277
• armed robbery $280,237
• serious assault $84,555
• burglary $30,197
Slide 36
37. Example: Breakdown of Tangible Costs of a
Robbery
• Economic loss: $1,357
• Total economic loss of all robberies divided by
number of robberies
• $967,280,000 / 712,610
• Risk-of-homicide cost: $1,663
• Mental health cost: $1,047
• Total robbery cost: $3,299
Slide 37
38. Example: Breakdown of Intangible Costs of
a Robbery
Intangible cost per crime = probability of an injury per crime x
intangible award per injury
Type of Injury Average Jury Pain-and-Suffering
Award Estimate
Gunshot wound $63,404 $48,492
Broken bones + internal
injury $34,020 $20,591
Knife wound $34,020 $30,327
Knocked unconscious $6,239 $4,200
Bruises, cuts, etc. $1,826 $1,359
All other injuries $1,826 $1,042
Slide 38
40. Challenges and Limitations
• Study uses national data; local costs may be different
• No estimates for drug crimes
• Costs of psychological distress are not included
• Costs of crime prevention efforts like burglar alarms
not included.
Slide 40
44. References
• McCollister, Kathryn E., Michael T. French, and Hai
Fang. (2010). The cost of crime to society: New
crime-specific estimates for policy and program
evaluation. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 108, no.
1-2, 98-109.
• Miller, Ted R., Mark A. Cohen, and Brian Wiersema.
(1996). Victim Costs and Consequences: A New
Look. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
• Cohen, Mark A. (1998). The Monetary Value of
Saving a High-Risk Youth. Journal of Quantitative
Criminology. 14, 1, 5-33.
Slide 44
45. Follow-up
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Slide 45
46. The Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank for Criminal Justice (CBKB) is a
project of the Vera Institute of Justice funded by the U.S.
Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance.
• Website (cbkb.org)
• Cost-Benefit Analysis Toolkit
• Snapshots of CBA Literature
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Slide 46
48. This project is supported by Grant No. 2009-MU-BX K029 awarded by the Bureau of
Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of
Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National
Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and
the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and
Tracking. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do
not represent the official position or policies of the United States Department of
Justice.
Slide 48
The reason we are talking about this is that we talk about crime prevention is to reduce crime, reduce victimization. So when we’re analyzing the merits of a policy or program that affects crime, when we’re weight its costs and benefits, we have to examine how it affects victimization. A thorough, comprehensive CBA needs to measure victim benefits, or victim costs.
You can ask questions at any time by typing a question or comment in the chat box feature to the left of your screen. A CBKB staff member will respond your question or queue up your question to the speaker’s attention.
Researchers have estimated the victim costs of crime and we can use those estimates in CBA and other analyses. But before we get into the methods, we are honored to have TS here with us to first talk about what kinds of costs victims experience. TS is… give background. She will tell us what vc are, and share her perspectives on why this matters. Brings victims’ perspectives into the conversation on policy and budget decisions.
Just mention a few key points here.. Judges, prosecutors, lawmakers and policymakers Prevention reduces potential for new victimization and repeat victimization More restitution orders and financial support for crime victim compensation
Talking points: Mention that tangible is synonymous with monetary Describe these most common types of costs, and then briefly mention the rest (on the next slide)
Talking points: Briefly mention that these are some of the other costs.
Talking points: Victims also experience non-monetary costs that OVS is unable to compensate for. These include trauma-related issues, etc (give other examples); relocation, security and counseling create tangible costs closely related to intangible costs Mention that these are very difficult to measure (foreseeability, probability and hope): ripple effect Mention that next, Kathryn McCollister will talk about some of the methods used to quantify these costs.
Over $200 thousand to date Child Sexual Abuse Dissociative Identity Disorder In-patient and out-patient counseling
VALERIE WILL BRIEFLY WRAP UP TINA’S PRESENTATION AND INTRODUCE KATHRYN.
Notes from Valerie to Kathryn: If you could briefly mention what goes into each type of cost, that would be great. I tried to keep the number of words on the slide to a limit, so I’m hoping you could mention the components instead of having them on the slide. Criminal justice system costs: police protection, legal and adjudication services, corrections Crime career costs: opportunity cost of engaging in crime rather than legal, productive activities Victim costs: medical care, lost wages, property loss/damage, plus intangible costs associated with pain and suffering, decreased quality of life, psychological distress
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: It would be good to mention here that the study also looked at criminal justice costs and crime career costs. I didn’t put it on the slide because I thought it might be distracting. I think it would be good if you could mention that you did the study to help understand substance abuse costs, but I’m afraid that including several slides on that at the beginning might mislead listeners into thinking that measuring victim costs is for substance abuse only.
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: here it would be great if you could explain what each category means, particularly some of the costs that are less obvious, risk-of-homicide ( Probability certain offense leads to homicide times mean present value of lifetime earnings) . These explanations don’t need to be too long, because Tina Stanford will mention these earlier in the webinar. I added this list from a different slides, so that folks can see right away what the study looked at. I also deleted the pie chart on substance abuse costs.
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: I added these bullet points based on the info on p. 5 of you 2010 study. It would be great if you could mention how this and other methods were developed.
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: if you could provide more detail on each of these categories, that would be great. Particularly how you calculate the risk of homicide and the present value of earnings. I simplified the definition for the slide, but maybe you could add some detail on present value, etc.
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: if you could provide more detail on each of these categories, that would be great. Particularly how you calculate the risk of homicide and the present value of earnings. I simplified the definition for the slide, but maybe you could add some detail on present value, etc.
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: your slide said that the pain-and-suffering costs are calculated for 3 crime categories, but the study includes 4 (rape, robbery, aggravated assault, murder). I changed it to 4 on this slide, but please let me know if that’s wrong. It would be great if you could provide a bit more detail in your verbal presentation, saying that Jury Verdict Research provides info on jury award per injury, and that NCVS provides the probability of injury for different offenses, which helps you figure out the jury award per offense.
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: - Developed by Mark Cohen
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: It would be great if you could mention some of the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. One advantage is that it’s more comprehensive, but one disadvantage is that some audiences are skeptical to believe very high costs. You may also want to mention your study did not use this approach.
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: I took this info from a chart called total crime victim cost per offense. I thought it be good to pick an example and go through it. Maybe you could briefly go over how each cost category was calculated.
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: - The data on this chart comes from your chart showing these costs for rape, robbery, and assault. I thought it would be easier to focus on one crime. - You may want to walk listeners through this chart, repeating that pain and suffering costs are estimated by subtracting tangible costs from the award, and also that awards are for injuries not for crimes, so you had to convert costs per injury to costs per crime.
Notes for Kathryn from Valerie: Here you could just mention a few key points, such as the role of intangibles in crime like rape, mention a few crimes with high and low victim costs, etc.
You can ask questions at any time by typing a question or comment in the chat box feature to the left of your screen. A CBKB staff member will respond your question or queue up your question to the speaker’s attention.
Helps policymakers get clear and accessible information on the economic pros and cons associated with criminal and juvenile justice investments. Bridges the gap between research and policy by putting evidence in context. What works? Is “what works” worth it? What should we do?