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Pain, Suffering, and Jury Awards: A Study of the Cost of Crime to Victims
Abstract
Previous studies of the cost of crime have focused on the out-of-pocket expenses incurred by victims. This approach significantly underestimates the cost of crime to victims by ignoring the pain, suffering, and fear caused by crime. Other studies have attempted to infer the cost of crime by estimating property value differences in high versus low crime areas. However, this approach does not permit one to determine the cost of individual crimes. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the cost of individual crimes by examining the pain, suffering, and fear endured by crime victims. Actual victim injury rates are combined with jury awards in personal injury accident cases to estimate monetary values for pain, suffering, and fear. I combine crime-related death rates with estimates of the value of life to arrive at monetary values for the risk of death. My estimate of the aggregate annual cost of crime to victims of FBI index crimes is $92.6 billion. These estimates are shown to have several direct policy applications.
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Citations
Cited by
Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime: Comment
McCrary, J. (2002) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/00028280260344768 · Cited by 867
New Evidence on the Monetary Value of Saving a High Risk Youth
Cohen, M. A., & Piquero, A. R. (2009) · Journal of Quantitative Criminology · doi:10.1007/s10940-008-9057-3 · Cited by 682
Self-citationThe cost of crime to society: New crime-specific estimates for policy and program evaluation
McCollister, K. E., French, M. T., & Fang, H. (2010) · Drug and Alcohol Dependence · doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2009.12.002 · Cited by 584
Why Do So Many Young American Men Commit Crimes and What Might We Do About It?
Freeman, R. B. (1996) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/jep.10.1.25 · Cited by 543
The Monetary Value of Saving a High-Risk Youth
Cohen, M. A. (1998) · Journal of Quantitative Criminology · doi:10.1023/a:1023092324459 · Cited by 507
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Metadata
- Authors
- Cohen, M. A.
- Venue
- Law & Society Review
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 1988
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 537-555
- ISSN
- 0023-9216 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-5893
- OpenAlex
- W2091588924
- Cited by
- 250
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 5.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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