Cost-Benefit Analysis for Crime Prevention: Opportunity Costs, Routine Savings and Crime Externalities

Research on cost-benefit analysis of situational crime prevention is examined and found wanting. The few existing studies do not accurately represent the likely benefits of the situational approach. While measures of non-monetary crime costs are improving, at least four other key areas warrant more attention: First, "routine savings" derive from routine precautions. Second, models of victim (producer) and offender (consumer) surplus are underdeveloped in this field. Third, crime externalities occur when entities (such as manufacturers, premises managers, some persons and environments) produce targets and situations that provide criminal opportunities. These entities "externalize" or do not bear the crime costs to society that they produce. We propose the concept of "crime as pollution" for the study of crime externalities, and outline the potential of policies adapted from environmental economics. Fourth, the intentional absence of crime prevention has an opportunity cost that might be examined as a form of negligent omission.