Abstract
The cost of crime guides society’s stance on crime and informs decisions about crime-prevention efforts. While early studies focused on crime rates and the direct cost of crime, the aggregate burden of crime involves a much broader pool of information. Counts of crimes do not indicate the severity of criminal acts or the burden of expenditures to deter crime. Beyond aggregating expenses commonly associated with unlawful activity, a thorough examination of the cost of crime covers such repercussions as the opportunity cost of victims’ and criminals’ time, the fear of being victimized, and the cost of private deterrence.
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Further Reading
Anderson DA (2002) The deterrence hypothesis and picking pockets at the pickpockets hanging. Am Law Econ Rev 4(2):295–313
Cohen MA (2005) The costs of crime and justice. Routledge, New York
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Anderson, D.A. (2019). Cost of Crime. In: Marciano, A., Ramello, G.B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7753-2_551
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7753-2_551
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