THE COST OF CRIMES OF VIOLENCE

Client: Ministry of Justice

Period: 2014-2015

Crimes of violence impose several costs on society, victim, and offender’s family. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the costs associated with crimes of violence for Estonian society. The study focuses on three types of crime: manslaughter, rape and robbery. For each criminal offence in question, the costs related to criminal procedure of crimes and punishment, i.e. control costs and the damage arising from their results, i.e. consequential costs are found.

Manslaughter is clearly the most costly of the crimes under consideration. The more than tenfold difference in the cost of manslaughter compared to other types of crime comes mainly from consequential costs. The majority of consequential costs of manslaughter are made up by the damage resulting from the statistical value of human life. The control costs taken into consideration in the survey do not differ by crime types to such large extent as do the consequential costs.

However, in terms of costs related to controlling, the costs of the offences of manslaughter are the highest. The biggest category of control costs for all types of crime are the punishment costs which form approximately 90% of control costs.

The assessments included in this study cover only a part of the costs due to data limitations.