Pubdate: Tue, 08 Apr 2003
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2003 The Age Company Ltd
Contact:  http://www.theage.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5
Author: Ian Munro, Law and Justice Editor

$32BN, THE HIGH COST OF CRIME

Crime and the cost of fighting and dealing with it costs Australia
about $32 billion annually, according to the Australian Institute of
Criminology.

In a report to be released today, the institute includes costs such as
medical treatment and lost productivity from victims of assaults and
homicides, property lost in burglaries and car thefts, credit card and
employee fraud, and arson and vandalism.

Institute director Adam Graycar said the report revealed the hidden
costs of crime. Estimating its costs was important in directing law
enforcement into areas where it would be of most benefit, he said.

Among the findings:

Each homicide costs $1.6 million, mostly in lost productivity from
victims. The total cost of homicides was $930 million in 2001, the
survey year.

Lost productivity and health costs related to drug abuse and drug
treatment programs cost $1.96 billion.

Violent and property crime attributed to drug dependency costs an
estimated $3.7 billion, putting the total cost of illicit drugs at
$5.6 billion.

Residential burglaries cost about $1.7 billion, and burglaries overall
cost $2.43 billion.

Fraud, comprising credit card abuse, welfare, tax, insurance fraud and
forgery costs the public $5.8 billion a year.

Many of the figures are estimates. The report attempts to take account
of unreported crime, using measuring methods used overseas.

The most careful costings are those for homicide, assault, sexual
assault, robbery, burglary, car theft and shoplifting, the report
says. But calculating the cost of fraud is "particularly tenuous". Dr
Graycar said most frauds were not investigated by police, and
businesses were reluctant to report it in fear of being seen as naive
and an easy mark.

The report estimates that three frauds go undetected for every one
recorded.

The costs attributed to drug offences do not include policing and
prosecuting offenders, and the cost of homicides does not include
investigations or imprisonment of offenders, which costs about $50,000
each a year.

Police Minister Andre Haermeyer said he had "some difficulty with
being too driven by putting values on things that are too difficult to
evaluate. How do you put a value on homicide? Certainly it (the
report) tells us crime has considerable costs."

Victoria Police Association secretary Paul Mullett said the report
highlighted that proper resourcing of police saved money in the long
term.

He called on the State Government to provide the 600 extra police it
had promised so more resources could be directed to crime prevention.
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MAP posted-by: Derek