Economic Analysis and Efficiency in Policing, Criminal Justice and Crime Reduction ─ What Works?

A key part of the evidence base for practitioners and policymakers includes the costs of interventions and the returns yielded from incurring those costs. However, to date crime reduction work economic analyses have been uncommon and even when undertaken have been partial, technically weak and insufficiently informed by economic theory. This book explains what economic analysis is, why it is important, and forms it can take. Costs are important in all forms of economic analysis although their collection tends to be partial and inadequate in capturing key information. A practical guide to the collection is therefore also provided. The book will be of great interest to students in economics and advanced students in policing and crime reduction as well as to analysts and decision makers in policing and crime reduction.

Matthew Manning is an economist in the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University.

Shane D. Johnson is Professor in the Department of Security and Crime Science, University College London, UK.

Nick Tilley is Professor in the Department of Security and Crime Science, University College London, UK, Adjunct Professor in the Criminology Institute at Griffith University, Australia, and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University, UK.

Gabriel T.W. Wong is a doctoral student in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University, Australia.

Margarita Vorsina is a doctoral student in the Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Griffith University, Australia.