Utah Cost of Crime 2012

In conducting a cost benefit analysis, the Commission is seeking to create a management tool to empower decision makers with the information necessary to reach their policy goals. The current project is much different than our previous 2005 report for the following reasons:

  • Utah has included a break-even analysis. This statistic represents the cost savings estimated due to decreased recidivism and victimization costs, allowing policy makers to use our findings prospectively to evaluate new programming.
  • Where specific program costs are available, Utah has calculated ROI (return on investment), as well as a new statistic: cost per unit effect (CUE). These statistics convert traditional cost benefit ratios into a format which is more familiar to managers (ROI) and intuitive (CUE), enabling quicker evaluation of existing programming.

With that in mind, within each program category of interest there are potentially three (3) documents:

  • Management Brief: These documents provide an overview of our meta-analytic research, cost savings break-even points, promising program practices and model programs, and (where available) overviews of Utah-specific programs. These documents are best suited to help evaluate new programming but also provide insight into existing programs.
  • Financial Brief: Where specific program costs are known, these documents calculate the return on investment (ROI) and cost per unit effect (CUE) for existing programs offered in Utah’s justice system, using the findings from our cost benefit analysis.
  • Technical Report: These documents provide an overview of the research in a given program category, a list of evaluations used in the meta-analysis, details on the calculations used to determine program effectiveness, and an analysis of other factors influencing the effect.

In addition, we’ve included two documents, “Utah Cost of Crime 2012: An Introduction to a Cost Benefit Approach” and “Utah Cost of Crime 2012: Methods for Reviewing Program Effectiveness,” which describe our research methods, and a guide to better understand evaluations, “Evaluating Evaluations.” Finally, the document, “Analysis of State & Local Criminal Budgets,” provides a descriptive analysis of some of the general expenditure data collected for the cost-benefit model.

Together, these documents represent many hours of collaborative work by researchers at the Commission, the Utah Criminal Justice Center (University of Utah College of Social Work), and the Department of Economics (University of Utah).

General Methods

Overview: This paper briefly describes Utah’s approach to creating a new management tool to maximize the money spent on criminal justice.

Analysis of State & Local Criminal Budgets: This paper briefly describes data collected by researchers at the Commission on Criminal & Juvenile Justice to create Utah’s Cost-Benefit Model. When adjusted for inflation, criminal justice budgets at the state level only increased 4% between 2005 and 2010 while budgets at the local level increased by 23%.

Introduction to an Econometric Cost-Benefit Approach: This paper describes the methodology used by researchers from the Department of Economics at the University of Utah, in conjunction with the Commission on Criminal & Juvenile Justice, to create Utah’s Cost-Benefit Model, including sources of data and descriptions of statistical methods used.

Methods Review of Program Effectiveness: This paper describes the methodology used by researchers at the Utah Criminal Justice Center and the Commission on Criminal & Juvenile Justice to assess program effectiveness for its inclusion in the Utah's Cost Benefit Model, including sources of data and descriptions of statistical methods used.

Evaluating Evaluations: This paper briefly describes Utah’s approach to evaluating the quality of the program evaluations used in our analysis.

Adult Program Categories ( Reports to be posted as they are released )

    Sex Offender Treatment

    Intensive Supervision

    Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

    Drug Court

    Mental Health Court

    Therapeutic Communities

Juvenile Program Categories ( Reports to be posted as they are released )

    Sex Offender Treatment

    Intensive Supervision

    Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

    Drug Court

    Diversion

    Therapeutic Communities

Note: The site will be updated with the reports in the above categories as they become available. In addition, further categories will be added as other reviews are conducted in the future.

*CCJJ and its partners are in the process of collecting cost data from the agencies to allow completion of the Financial Briefs, and we are working to adapt the econometric model used in the adult analysis to make it more appropriate for analysis of the juvenile program categories. The Financial Briefs and Juvenile Program reports should be posted sometime in the middle of 2014.

Location

Our agency hours are 8am-5pm, Monday-Friday.

State Capitol Complex
Senate Building Suite 330
PO Box 142330
SLC UT 84114-2330
Office: 801-538-1031
Fax: 801-538-1024