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Author: Sam Brand and Richard Price
ISBN No:
Review date: 21/07/2026
No of pages: 83
Publisher:
Year of publication:
Brief:
Crime costs the commercial and public sectors more than £9 billion a year, Home Office researchers have estimated.
Crime costs the commercial and public sectors more than £9 billion a year, Home Office researchers have estimated. Thefts from shops, the biggest single crime cost, make up £3 billion: ‘Even at an average of only £100 per incident, the huge number of incidents make this the most costly crime against the commercial and public sector. Both criminal damage and burglary not in a dwelling cost businesses and other organisations approximately £2.6 billion.’ The researchers (using BSIA and insurance figures for security-related estimates) put the total cost of crime to England and Wales at œ60 billion a year, and then called it an underestimate.
The researchers have made a brave stab at estimating how much a crime costs an organisation – useful ammunition to a security manager, maybe. ‘An average theft of a commercial vehicle, at œ9,700, cost almost twice as much as an average theft of a vehicle from individuals/households. This was due both to the higher cost of property stolen and damaged (œ4,600 per incident), and the much higher cost of security and insurance administration (around £5,000 per incident). Thefts from commercial vehicles, at £700 per incident, cost slightly more than thefts from vehicles owned by individuals/households.’
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As other reviews on this site have stressed, so little is known about the cost of fraud, for example – and if costs are not known, how can you target proportionate resources at the problem’ – that guesses at the cost of crime to England and Wales plc have ranged in the last couple of years from œ35 billion to œ60 billion. Quite a difference! The researchers simply gave up trying to Fraud and forgery is a notoriously difficult area of criminal activity on which to find reliable
information. Early on in the development of cost of crime estimates, the working group on the development of a cost of crime performance measure for the criminal justice system realised that there were no adequate estimates of the cost of fraud and forgery to the economy.’ The researchers have come up with some challenging figures – taht in economic terms, violent crime is costly to the UK compared to how much happens. The assaulted person who has to take time off work is a cost to the employer – does the employer get any recompense from the criminal’ No, but in the very end the cost is passed on to the consumer – but higher costs make the organisation less competitive. ‘When we focus on the volume of offences violent crimes come to around a quarter of the total. When we focus on the cost of those offences rather than the volume, violent crimes constitute nearly three-quarters of the total cost.’ The Home Office adds that it is bringing out research into the physical and emotional impact of violent crime in mid-2001.
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As the authors admit: ‘The study concentrates largely on offences falling under notifiable offence categories. Not all crimes are included in the study. The costs of drug trafficking and possession, handling stolen goods, public order offences, other low-level disorder, fare evasion, summary and non-summary motoring offences and other summary offences are not estimated.’
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‘The total cost of crime to England and Wales in 1999/2000 is estimated at around £60 billion, although this figure is still far from comprehensive, as it does not include important costs such as fear of crime or quality of life impacts… Around £19 billion of the total cost of crime is the cost of property stolen or damaged. Nearly £18 billion of the total is the direct emotional and physical impact on victims of crime.’ Another failing is that what the police tell the Home Office is not the whole picture – for instance, nearly 120,000 offenders were cautioned or convicted of theft from a shop in 1998, and it is thought that one caution or conviction is a sign of 150 offences. How do you multiply the cost of shoplifting to the UK?
It’s interesting to see security spending regarded as ‘defensive expenditure’ that centres on reducing the risk of property crimes: ‘The response to crime by the criminal justice system constitutes nearly 20 per cent of the total cost of crime, at £11.6 billion [the researchers plumping for the œ60 billion a year estimate]. Identifiable costs in anticipation of crime ‘ security expenditure and insurance administration costs’ came to over £5 billion, with the bulk of this as security expenditure.. ‘Another issue in expenditure on security is choice’ many security features now come as standard in cars (e.g. steering locks, alarms) and houses (e.g. window locks). To the extent that any such features reduce crime (and the reduced quality of life through fear of crime etc.) rather than yielding other, non-crime benefits, the extra cost of incorporating these built-in features at the manufacturing stage should be counted as a cost of crime. Since measurement of the cost of built-in security measures is difficult, the balance between add-on, after-sale security and built-in features will inevitably affect our cost estimates artificially.’ Such narrowly economic views of crime do bring up warped views such as: what is the cost of crime to the offender (who loses earnings, and whose family suffers, when caught)’ Not a problem that the average security manager will lose much sleep over.
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The authors go on to the wider costs of crime, such as ‘fewer shops and services are likely to be provided in high crime areas. Those that are supplied will be supplied at a higher cost to cover insurance and security …’
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Home Office Research Study 217, The Economic and Social Costs of Crime, 83 pages, Sam Brand and Richard Price, Research, Development and Statistics Directorate. See www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index.htm. Ring 020 7273 2084, write to Room 201, Home Office, 50 Queen Anne’s Gate, London SW1H 9AT.
