Economic Analyses

Abstract

Analysis of programme spending of any Western government at federal or state level will show investments in interventions to keep communities safe, maintain law and order, prevent crime, reduce offending and reduce re-offending. This chapter explores what has been learned from systematic reviews about the costs and benefits of criminal justice interventions and how economic analysis can be used to inform investment and disinvestment decisions of policymakers. The chapter is divided into five sections. The first section provides a brief overview of the background to economic evaluation in criminal justice. It then goes on to report the results of four systematic reviews of economic studies. This leads to a discussion of the current limitations of primary studies and indeed synthesis of economic evaluation. The penultunate section presents a complementary decision analytic approach which, while informed by reviews, enables jurisdiction-specific economic analysis of crime and justice programmes. A case study is presented from the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. The final section concludes with some recommendations for policymakers and researchers to build on the lessons learned so far. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)