Investing in Crime Prevention

The evidence is conclusive that the most effective way to prevent crime is to ensure healthier children, stronger families, better schools and more cohesive communities. Crime prevention through social development is a sound investment. The dividends include less violence, safer communities and significant cost savings in the criminal justice system and in almost every other area of public and private spending.

The Threat: of Crime

Canadians continue to feel threatened by crime in their communities. They feel threatened by the amount of crime around them and by the violent nature of so much of this crime.

• Despite small reductions in recent years,¹ the crime rate in 1994 was 8% higher than a decade ago.² The rate of violent crime increased by an average of 4% every year from 1978 to 1993³ and is now 400% higher than in the 1960s.⁴  In 1993, approximately 24% of all adult Canadians had been the victims of at least one criminal act within the preceding 12 months.⁵

 
• Canadians are 50% more likely than Europeans and 500% more likely than Japanese to be victims of burglary, assault, sexual offences and robbery.⁶

 
• Successive polls have reflected our fears and anxiety about crime: 50% of Canadians feel less safe than they did five years ago; 48% of Canadians believe violent crime is increasing, after unemployment, crime was viewed by Canadians in one poll as the most important issue of the day; 48% of women and 18% of men feel that there are areas close to their homes where they would be afraid to walk at night.⁷

Women are more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone known to them than by a stranger, 31 % of all women have experienced a sexual assault by someone known to them (such as dates or boyfriends, marital partners, family, neighbours and acquaintances) while 19% have been victimized by a stranger.

The Cost of Controlling Crime

In this period of fiscal restraint, governments are spending tremendous sums of money on the criminal justice system.

• Spending on police services, the courts, legal aid and corrections reached $9.7 billion in 1993/94, an increase of 13% in constant dollars since 1988/89.⁹

 
• Over the past seven years, the average annual increase in spending on police services has been 7.1 %. Total spending on police has now reached almost $6 billion.¹⁰ Total spending on corrections in 1994/95 was $1.9 billion, an increase of 10% over five years.¹¹

 
• In 1994/95, the average number of inmates in correctional institutions was 33,882, an increase since 1990/91 of 24% in the federal system and 11% in the provincial systems.¹²

 
• The estimated cost of detaining a young offender is at least $100,000 per year. ¹³ Estimates of the annual cost of incarcerating an adult range from about $40,000 a year to almost $80,000. ¹⁴ Inmates in federal correctional institutions are incarcerated for an average of 44 months, representing an expenditure of more than $160,000 per person.



The Full Cost of Crime

The $9.7 billion in direct expenditures on the criminal justice system represents only the most visible part of the total cost of crime to Canadians and Canadian society. Researchers have struggled with the challenge of developing a reliable and more comprehensive estimate of the full cost of crime.
 

• Statistics Canada and government ministers have estimated the indirect but readily identifiable costs of crime (property loss, security services, insurance frauds, crime-related hospitalization and volunteers) at $6.7 billion annually.¹⁵ This estimate does not include the cost of the human pain and suffering resulting from crime, or the social costs to communities. Including them would raise the estimate many times over.

 
• In 1993, the Quebec Task Force on Crime  Prevention, after examining only the readily  measurable costs of crime ("the tip of a largely  submerged iceberg"), suggested that the full cost of crime in that province could range from $6.8  billion to $34 billion annually. Their approach  would suggest total Canadian costs of up to $136  billion annually, ^{16 an} amount that is three to four times the annual deficit of the Government of Canada.

 
• A formula developed by a panel of experts reporting to Business Week in the United States, if applied to Canada, would suggest total costs of  perhaps $46 billion annually. This estimate is  based upon costs in the criminal justice system (i.e., $9.7 billion) representing 21.2% of the total cost of crime. ¹⁷

 
• Attempting to address the less readily identifiable costs, the Canadian Public Health Association has estimated the cost of violence- related hospitalization at between $38 million and $71 million annually. ¹⁸

 
• Researchers with the Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children have examined a broader - though still not complete -range of costs resulting from criminal violence against women. They calculated that this crime carries an annual price tag of $4.2 billion with social services and education costs being $2.4  billion, criminal justice costs being $872 million,  labour and employment losses being $577 million and health and medical costs being $408 million. The authors suggest that governments bear 87.5% of these costs, or $3.7 billion annually.¹⁹

 
•  Another study examining only the health-related costs of violence against women calculates a total of more than $1.5 billion, including $255 million in medical consultations through the long term and $506 million in short- and long-term psychiatric care.²⁰

Nevertheless, it is clear from the valuable research that these groups have undertaken that the costs and expenditures associated with crime are significant.

A conservative estimate would place those costs in the range of $46 billion annually. Furthermore, even this estimate does not include the cost-of white-collar crime, such as income tax evasion or stock market manipulation

Preventing Crime through Social Development

There are very real limits to what the criminal justice system can achieve in terms of preventing crime, deterring criminals or making our homes and communities safer.22 There are limits as well to how much we should be spending on these approaches. Indeed, the most concrete outcome of our current approach is an incarceration rate among the highest in the world.²³

A more effective strategy for preventing crime includes social development programs that strengthen individuals, families and communities.

Social development programs can address those factors that are associated with youth delinquency and adult criminal activity; for example, violence in the home, unsupportive family life and parental behaviours, poverty, poor housing, failure in school and illiteracy, drug and alcohol abuse, and unemployment.²⁴

High quality early childhood child care and education have been shown to reduce the delinquency rate among disadvantaged children. It is also associated with a higher success rate in completing high school and obtaining employment.

• Family support, parent training and early intervention programs are estimated to reduce child abuse by as much as 50% and thereby reduce also the life-long consequences and costs of living with abuse. Similar programs can prevent the highly aggressive behaviour among young children that is often associated with failure in school and, later, with delinquency and criminality.²⁵

•  A four-year longitudinal study conducted in Sweden found that children entering day care at an early age performed significantly better in a variety of important learning and social ways than did children entering day care at a later age. Quality child care can lessen the likelihood of some children becoming involved in drugs, vandalism and other antisocial behaviours.²⁶

• Crime went down by 60% in two Lansing, Michigan, neighbourhoods after police, local schools and social service agencies opened a neighbourhood centre and launched an extensive youth development program.

Only 6% of participants in a day care assistance and home visiting program in Syracuse, New York, were ever processed in juvenile court, compared with 22% of youth randomly assigned to a control group.²⁷

• A home visiting and parenting skills program for low-income families in Houston, Texas, helped parents to be more affectionate, more responsive and less punitive. Five to eight years later, program children exhibited less fighting, and less anti-social and aggressive behaviour than did those in a control group. Participants were less disruptive, less impulsive and less restless, all behaviours with links to subsequent criminality. ²⁸

 
• Children in the Yale Children in the Yale Child Welfare Project, 10 years after the program, showed less delinquency-related behaviour, were less dependent upon welfare, were better educated and were less likely to require remedial education than those in a control group.²⁹

 
• None of these examples is based on a reliance on traditional criminal justice system responses.

 
• These case studies of effective programs all rely upon a social development, rather than the traditional criminal justice, model. Importantly, public opinion in Canada coincides with the research of specialists in the field. Both view social development programs - child care, income security, youth community centres - as the most effective means of preventing crime.³⁰

Social development programs make sense not only in terms of making our communities safer, but also in terms of reducing government expenditures in both the short and long term.

• In Ottawa, the PALS (Participate and Learn Skills) community project offered young people a range of activities. An evaluation concluded that the savings in reduced vandalism, police time and fire costs greatly exceeded the program's cost even in the short term. ³¹

 
• Long-term evaluation in the United States conclude that a $1 investment in quality preschool child care saves $7 that would have been spent down the road on welfare, policing, social services and prisons.³²
• Almost 30 years of follow-up with participants n the Perry Preschool Program in Michigan indicates clearly how home visits and family support  create major cost savings by reducing criminal  behaviour. The program also yielded a host of other benefits for participants: they were more likely than those in a control group to be literate, employed and attending college or vocational school; less likely to to have become parents while still teenagers; and less likely to be dependent upon social assistance.

By preventing recidivism through short-term crisis intervention and family support, the Los Angeles County Delinquency Prevention Program  produces savings of somewhere between six and  30 times the $300 spent annually on behalf of  each of the program's 10,000 participants.³⁴

 The Jobs Corps program in the United States provides more than 62,000 youth each year with basic education, vocational skills and a range of supportive services. The program is expensive,  costing from $15,000 to $21,000 per participant. However, evaluations of the program find that it "significantly increased earnings and educational attainment while reducing welfare dependency and the incidence of serious crime among graduates." The payback to society is estimated at 145% of the program costs.³⁵

Safety and Savings

The cost of crime - at least $46 billion annually - is a horrendous drain on the limited financial resources of Canada.  Our $9.7 billion in direct government expenditures on the criminal justice system is a squandering of resources.  These funds do little to make our homes and communities safer places to live and to work

We must balance our spending between the control of crime and the prevention of crime. In this era of limited financial resources, we have to ensure that we are spending more effectively, and that our limited dollars are invested wisely.  We need to examine that we are doing with our resources and use those resources to address crime in an effective manner and, in so doing, ensure that our communities are safer.

By the way of example:

• it would cost our society less to support one person through four years of a university education than we spend now on incarcerating one person for one year; and

 
• data from the Canadian Tax Foundation indicate that crime is consuming more of our financial resources than the government of Canada commits to old age pensions ($15.8 billion), the Child Tax Benefit ($5 billion), the Canada Assistance Plan ($7.4 billion), and child care ($5.5 billion) combined, and twice as much as is spent to support unemployed people through the Unemployment Insurance program ($18.1 billion) .³⁶

^{Enabling children to live in a healthy manner, within strong families and cohesive communities, is that wise investment.}

 References

 ^1. Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS),  "Canadian Crime Statistics, 1994," Juristat, Vol. 15(12). For example, federal statute incidents were down 4%  in 1994 from 1993. This was the third consecutive  year in which crime rates declined. See also, National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC, "Picture of Crime in Canada," September, 1995.

 ^2. CCJS, "Canadian Crime Statistics, 1994," Juristat, Vol. 15(12).

 ^3. CCJS, Canadian Crime Statistics, 1993, 1994.

^4. CCJS, "Violent Crime in Canada," Juristat, Vol. 10(15).

 ^5. Statistics Canada, General Social Survey on Personal Risk, 1993; CCJS, "Urban/Rural Criminal Victimization in Canada;" Juristat, Vol. 14(17); National Crime Prevention Council, "Picture of Crime in Canada," September 1995.

 ^6. International Crime Victimization Survey, 1988, quoted in National Crime Prevention Council, "Picture of  Crime in Canada;" September 1995.

⁷. Macleans, 4 January 1993:24-26; Gallup Corporation, "48% Believe Violent Crime is on the Rise," 17 July preventing 1995; Gallup Corporation, "Personal Safety," 2 March 1995; The Reid Report, Vol.5 (5), May 1990.  According to another Reid Report, the weak economy and the high unemployment rate were perceived as the cause of crime. Vol.9 (6), June 1994.

 ^8. CCJS, "Trends in Criminal Victimization, 1988-1993," Juristat, Vol.14 (13). See also CCJS, Criminal Victimization in Canada: The Findings of a Survey," Juristat, Vol. 10(16), October 1990; CCJS, "Criminal Justice Processing of Sexual Assault Cases", Juristat, Vol. 14, No.7, March 1994.

^9. CCJS, Juristat, Vol. 15 (10).

¹⁰. CCJS, Juristat, Vol. 15 (8), March 1995.

¹¹. CCJS, "Adult Correctional Services in Canada, 1994-95," January 1996.

^12. Ibid.

¹³. Ontario, Standing Committee on Social Development, Children at Risk, July 1994.

^14. Most recently, the CCJS suggested a cost of $40,000/year for adults in provincial institutions and $44,000/year for adults in federal institutions. See CCJS, "Adult Correctional Services in Canada, 1994/95," January 1996; See also: Canada. 1993. Crime Prevention in Canada: Toward a National Strategy. Twelfth Report of the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General (Dr. Bob Homer, Chair).

^15. CCJS, "Government Spending on Justice Services," 1991. This figure was used by both the then Minister of Justice, Pierre Blais (Globe and Mail, II March 1993:A7), and the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General (Crime Prevention in Canada: Toward a National Strategy, 1993).

^16. Quebec, Task Force on Crime Prevention, "Partners in Crime Prevention: For a Safer Quebec," Report of the Task Force on Crime Prevention, 1993:73-76. The Quebec calculations included policing services, CSIS, private security services, legal services including legal aid, adult and youth correctional services and other youth services, assistance for victims, training and special projects. The Task Force deducted the revenues accruing through fines from their total.

^17. Business Week, "The Economics of Crime," 13 December 1993:72-85. The formula suggested that criminal justice costs represented only 21.2% of the total cost of crime while pain and suffering - "shattered lives" - represented 40%. The article also illustrated the significance of crime's impact on communities, quoting the Mayor of Washington, D.C., to the effect that the National Guard should be patrolling the city and that, perhaps, stores should be closing down every evening to minimize the opportunity for crime.

^18. Canadian Public Health Association, "Violence in Society: A Public Health Perspective" 1994:8.

^19. L. Greaves, O. Hankivsky and J. Kingston-Riechers, Selected Estimates of the Cost of Violence Against Women, London, Ontario: Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children, 1995.

^20. Tanis Day, The Health Related Costs ofViolence Against Women in Canada: The Tip of the Iceberg, London, Ontario: Centre For Research on Violence Against Women and Children, 1995. Dr. Day estimates the short-term costs at $1.3 million for medical and dental treatment and $36.3 million for lost work time. She estimates the long-term costs at $255.4 million in medical treatment, $506.7 million in psychiatric treatment, $539.0 million in lost work, $29.4 million in community response services and $28.8 million in provincial and territorial prevention and treatment initiatives. See also Joan Zorza, "Women Battering: High Costs and the State of the Law," Clearinghouse Review, Special Edition, 1994.

^21. The Family Income Study in Washington State identified a significant difference in the rate of referrals to the juvenile court system for children in families with a history of abuse, neglect and abandonment. See Washington State Institute for Public Policy, "Children in welfare families were referred to Juvenile Court for abuse and neglect more often than other children," Report on Findings, June 1995: 1. See also the Canadian Council on Social Development, "A Violent Legacy: Exploring the Links Between Child Sexual Abuse and Wife Assault," Vis-a-Vis: A National Newsletter on Family Violence, Vol.9(2), Summer 1991.

^22. Department of Justice Canada, Crime Prevention in Canada: Towards a National Strategy, February 1993:2. In 1993, the Minister of Justice for Canada, Pierre Blais, stated that "more police, more laws and more prisons won't work to prevent crime." Globe and Mail, 11 March 1993: A7.

^23. CCJS, Juristat, February 1992:3; Correctional Services of Canada, Basic Facts about Corrections in Canada, 1991. The Canadian Criminal Justice Association has suggested that "... if the current rate of growth is maintained in the federal system, the prison population will increase by nearly 50% over the next ten years......(Canadian Criminal Justice Association, "Incarceration: What Does the Future Hold?" Bulletin, November 15, 1995:6.)

^24. In 1993, the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General unanimously agreed that "our response to crime must shift to crime prevention efforts that ... focus increasingly on at-risk young people and on the underlying social and economic factors associated with crime and criminality." Canada, Crime Prevention in Canada, 1993:2 See also, National Crime Prevention Council, "Risks or Threats to Children," November, 1995.

^25. Paul D. Steinhauer, "Model for Prevention of Delinquency," Presentation to the National Crime Prevention Council, December 1995. A 1992 study undertaken by the Correctional Service of Canada, their partner or children and almost half had themselves been a victim of abuse as a child or adolescent, or had.witnessed violence in their home. (Caroline Cyr, Conceptual Model: Family Violence Programming Within a Correctional Setting,Correctional Service of Canada, May 1994) Another study, based on self-reporting by inmates, suggested that family violence occurred and was a factor in 58% of their cases. (Donald G. Dutton and Stephen d. Hart, "Risk Markers for Family Violence in a Federally Incarcerated Population," International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Vol. 15:101-112)

^26. Bengt-Erik Andersson, "Effects of Public Day-Care: A Longitudinal Study, " Child Development, Vol. 60, 1989:857-66; Michael Vaply, "Taking it out on child care," The Globe and Mail, 24 January 1996:A23.

^27. See Richard A. Mendel, Prevention or Pork? A Hard-Headed Look at Youth-Oriented Anti-Crime Programs, Washington, D.C. American Youth Policy Forum, 1995; National Crime Prevention Council, Dollars and Sense: Analyzing the Cost-Benefit of Crime Prevention through Social Development, Ottawa, 1995; John Graham, Manual on Crime Prevention Strategies, Helsinki Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, Heuni Publications, 1990; John Howard Society of Alberta, Crime Prevention through Social Development: A Literature Review, 1995.

^28. Mendel, Prevention or Pork? 1995:24.

^29. Ibid.

^30. For example, see Environics, "Focus on Crime and Justice" 3, 1994.

^31. M.B. Jones and D.R. Offard, "Reduction of antisocial behavior in poor children by non-school skill-development," Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol.30, 1989: 737-50

^32. The Globe and Mail, "Taking it out on child care," 24 January, 1996:A23.

³³. W. Steve Barnett, " Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Perry Preschool Program and its Policy Implications," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Vol. 7(4), Winter 1985:333-42.

 ^34. Mark W. Lipsey, "Is Delinquency Prevention a Cost-Effective Strategy? A California Perspective," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vo1.21(4),November 1984:279-302.

^35. U.S. Department of Labour, What's Working (and  what's not) - A Summary of Research on the Economic Impacts of Employment and Training Programs, Office of the Chief Economist, January 1995:15. See also Charles Mallar et. al., Third Follow-Up Report of the Evaluation of the Economic Impact of the Job Corps Program, Mathernatic Policy Research, 1982; Ivan Potas et al., Young People and Crime: Costs and Prevention, Canberra, Australia: Australian Institute of  Criminology, 1990.

^36. Canadian Tax Foundation, The National Finances: An analysis of the revenues and expenditures of the government  of Canada, 1994, Toronto, 1944: 10-1.

37. Ontario, Social Assistance Review Committee (George Thomson, Chair), Transitions, Report of the Social Assistance Review Committee, Toronto, Ministry of Community and Social Services, 1988:524.

 Selected Readings

 Barnett, W. Stephen. 1985. "Benefit-Cost Analysis of  the Perry Preschool Program and its Policy Implications." Educational Evaluation and Policy  Analysis. Vol. 7(4), Winter, 333-42.

Canada. National Crime Prevention Council. 1995.  Dollars and Sense: Analyzing the Cost-Benefit of Crime Prevention through Social Development. Ottawa: Prepared by Martin Spigelman Research Associates, Victoria, B.C..

 Day, Tanis. 1995. The Health-Related Costs of Violence Against Women in Canada: The Tip of  the Iceberg. London, Ontario: Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children.

Doob, Anthony N., Marinos, Voula and Varma, Kimberly. 1995. "Youth Crime and the Youth Justice System in Canada: A Research Perspective," Working document prepared for the Department of Justice Canada, Research Section.

Greaves, Lorraine, Hankivsky, 0. and Kingston- Riechers, J. 1995. Selected Estimates of the Costof Violence Against Women. London, Ontario: Centre for Research on Violence Against Women  and Children.

Haveman, Robert and Wolfe, Barbara. 1994. Succeeding Generations. On the Effects of  Investments in Children. New York: Russell Sage  Foundation.

John Howard Society of Alberta. 1995. Crime Prevention Through Social Development: A Literature Review. Edmonton: Wild Rose  Foundation.

Lipsey, Mark W. 1984. "Is Delinquency Prevention a Cost-Effective Strategy? A California Perspective." Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. Vol. 21(4), 279-302.

Mendel, Richard A. 1995. Prevention or Pork? A Hard-Headed Look at Youth-Oriented Anti-Crime Programs. Washington, D.C.: American Youth Policy Forum.

Quebec.. Task Force on Crime Prevention. 1993. "Partners in Crime Prevention: For a Safer Quebec." Report of the Task Force on Crime Prevention. Quebec: Ministere de la securite publique.

This document is reproduced with the permission
of the National Crime Prevention Council.
For further information on family violence issues,
contact:

National Clearinghouse on Family Violence
Postal Locator 1909D1
Family Violence Prevention Unit
Public Health Agency of Canada
Health Canada
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 1B4
(613) 957-2938

or call the toll-free number, 1-800-267-1291

For TTY users, (613) 952-6396 or call the toll-free number, 1-800-561-5643.

H72-21/147-1996E