Statistics and Research Branch Cost of Crime in Northern Ireland With Supplementary Annex The Costs of Crime against Government Departments in Northern Ireland DOJ Research and Statistical Series: Report No. 1 Produced by the Statistics and Research Branch of the Department of Justice. For additional copies contact: Statistics and Research Branch Justice Policy Directorate Massey House Stoney Road Belfast BT4 3SX Telephone: 028 9052 7157 Fax: 028 9052 7532 Email: [email protected] This publication and others on related criminal justice areas are also available on the Internet at: www.dojni.gov.uk The views in this report are those of the author and are not to be attributed to the Department of Justice. First published 2010 Application for reproduction should be made to Statistics and Research Branch, Massey House, Stoney Road, Belfast, BT4 3SX. © Crown copyright 2010 ISBN 1-903-68636-9 Foreword Crime poses a significant cost to individuals, business, government and society in general. Some of the obvious costs come from dealing with offenders - maintaining the criminal justice system, the police service, the courts and prosecution service, prisons and probation agencies. These costs themselves are a significant expense from the public purse. But there are many additional costs from crime that are less obvious. In physical terms, items stolen or damaged by crime need to be replaced or owners compensated. What is less easy to quantify, are the costs to individuals, physical and psychological, arising from being the victims of crime. These costs include the inherent consequences to individuals of being the victim of violent or sexual crime. And then there are the further expenses arising, for households, businesses and public bodies, from measures taken to avoid crime. Every pound spent in the prevention of crime or redressing the consequences of a crime is a pound taken away from other uses. The following papers were commissioned by the Northern Ireland Office in the period prior to devolution of policing and justice. The first paper, by Oxford Economics, looked at the overall costs of crime to the Northern Ireland economy. Following this, a supplementary paper was commissioned from Professor Roger Bowles of the University of York to examine possible ways of assessing how these costs of crime impact directly on Government departments. In many respects these are exploratory papers, now published as a basis for further discussion. But in other respects their message is stark and uncompromising. Crime is a major cost to the Northern Ireland economy and imposes real costs on every household within Northern Ireland. Crime deprives each man, woman and child of public resources that could be spent much more productively on their behalf. Crime is not simply an issue for the Criminal Justice system. In a time of straitened public finances, crime and the costs of crime impact across all Government departments. Brian Grzymek Deputy Director, Criminal Justice Services Division July 2010 3 Cost of Crime in Northern Ireland DOJ Research and Statistical Series: Report No. 1 Report prepared by: Oxford Economics 121, St Aldates, Oxford, OX1 1HB Tel: 01865 268900 Fax: 01865 268906 www.oxfordeconomics.com 5 Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7 1. INTRODUCTION 13 1.1. Background ....................................................................................13 1.2. Scope of the study ..........................................................................14 2. CALCULATING THE TOTAL ECONOMIC COST OF CRIME IN NORTHERN IRELAND 21 2.1. Overview .......................................................................................21 2.2. Crimes against individuals ..............................................................22 2.3. Crimes against businesses ...............................................................25 2.4. Crimes against government ............................................................27 2.5. Security/insurance costs .................................................................28 2.6. Response costs (CJS) .......................................................................28 3. SUMMARY OF THE COSTS OF CRIME IN NI 30 4. COSTS IN ANTICIPATION OF CRIME 42 4.1. Security and insurance administration costs ...................................42 5. COSTS AS A CONSEQUENCE OF CRIME - INDIVIDUALS 46 5.1. Violence against the person (Class 1 offences) ................................46 5.2. Sexual offences (Class 2 offences) ...................................................49 5.3. Domestic Burglary (Class 3 offences) ..............................................50 5.4. Robbery (Class 4 offences) ..............................................................52 5.5. Theft (Class 5 offences) ...................................................................52 5.6. Fraud and forgery (Class 6 offences) ...............................................53 5.7. Criminal damage (Class 7 offences) ................................................55 5.8. Offences against the State and Other notifiable offences (Class 8 and 9 offences) ..................................................................56 6. COSTS AS A CONSEQUENCE OF CRIME - BUSINESS 61 6.1. Non-domestic burglary (Class 3 offences) .......................................61 6.2. Robbery (Class 4 offences) ..............................................................62 6.3. Theft (Class 5 offences) ...................................................................63 6.4. Fraud (Class 6 offences) ..................................................................64 6.5. Criminal damage (Class 7 offences) ................................................67 6.6. Other notifiable offences (Class 9 offences) ....................................68 7. COSTS AS A CONSEQUENCE OF CRIME - GOVERNMENT 70 7.1. General approach ..........................................................................70 7.2. Class 3, 4, 5 and 7 crimes ..............................................................70 7.3. Class 6 crimes (Fraud) ....................................................................71 7.4. Class 8 and 9 crimes ......................................................................74 8. COSTS OF CRIME INCIDENCE TO NI GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS ..............................................................................75 9. COSTS IN RESPONSE TO CRIME 80 10. DATA GAPS AND FUTURE WORK 84 11. BIBLIOGRAPHY 88 APPENDIX 1: USING EU ICS DATA FOR NORTHERN IRELAND 95 Using EU ICS to Estimate Victim Losses from Crime in Northern Ireland .........................................................................95 APPENDIX 2: STUDY BRIEF AND OBJECTIVES 119 6 Executive Summary The Statistics and Research Branch of the Northern Ireland Office (NIO SRB) has requested that Oxford Economics prepare a report on the costs of crime in Northern Ireland (NI). In accordance with the terms of the study brief (outlined in Appendix 2), this report has provided estimates of: • the total costs of crime in Northern Ireland; • unit costs of crime associated with the main categories of crime against individuals, households and businesses; and • costs of crime to individual Departments, public and private bodies arising from different categories of crime. This report estimates that the total cost of crime in NI in 2006-07 was some £2.9 billion. A detailed description of the methodology used to construct these results can be found in the following chapters. However, a summary of the results is offered in the tables and charts below. As indicated in Chart ES-1, the total costs of crime in Northern Ireland are spread fairly evenly between major offence classes. Violence against the person, sexual offences, fraud, and drug offences all account for between 13%-16% of total costs. A second group of offences (burglary, theft, robbery, criminal damage and other notifiable offences - ex drugs) accounts for 6%-10% of total costs. The high cost of fraud is notable (although as discussed in the main report definitive estimates of fraud costs are particularly problematic). Also note that not all studies of the costs of crime include the costs of drug-related activity. A large component of drugs costs in this study relate to the annual “self harm” inflicted by users themselves, rather than costs associated with specific offences. 7 Chart ES-1: Total cost of crime split by crime type Total = £2,881 m Costs of crime are listed by category below. By far the largest cost components are costs of stolen or damaged property, physical/emotional costs and response costs. Anticipation costs, costs of lost output, health costs and victims support costs form relatively small components of the estimated total costs of crime. Viewed from another perspective, costs in anticipation of crime (6%) and in response to crime (32%) form a total of 38% of the total costs of crime. Costs as a consequence of crime (i.e. stolen or damaged property, physical/ emotional costs, output loss, victims support and health costs) constitute 62% of the costs of crime. 8 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Chart ES-2: Total cost of crime split by cost category Total = £2,881 m Costs expressed in terms of the victim category are indicated in Chart ES- 3. The costs of crime associated with individuals form by far the largest category of costs. “Government” costs have been split into those associated with Northern Ireland government departments and those which have been attributed to the UK government, with an additional small allocation for council rate fraud.