R e s e a r c h R e p o r t

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

OFF ICE OF JUSTICE PROGRAMS

BJA NI J OJJDP BJS OVC

National Institute of Justice

Victim Costs and Consequences:

A New Look
The National Institute of Justice, a component of the Office of Justice Programs, is the research and development

agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. NIJ was established to prevent and reduce crime and to improve the

criminal justice system. Specific mandates established by Congress in the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe

Streets Act of 1968, as amended, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 direct the National Institute of Justice to:

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continued or repeated.

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The National Institute of Justice has a long history of accomplishments, including the following:

■ Basic research on career criminals that led to the development of special police and prosecutor units to deal

with repeat offenders.

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difference between life and death to hundreds of police officers.

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suspects and eliminate the innocent from suspicion.

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community policing, community anti-drug initiatives, prosecution of complex drug cases, drug testing

throughout the criminal justice system, and user accountability programs.

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Institute’s objectives, guided by the priorities of the Office of Justice Programs, the Department of Justice, and

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agencies, research and development at the National Institute of Justice continues to search for answers to what

works and why in the Nation’s war on drugs and crime.

About the National Institute

of Justice
A Final Summary Report Presented to the National Institute of Justice

January 1996

Victim Costs and Consequences:

A New Look

Ted R. Miller

Mark A. Cohen

Brian Wiersema
i

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

Jeremy Travis

Director

Richard Titus, Ph.D.

Project Monitor

Ted R. Miller, Ph.D., is associate director of the National Public Services Research Institute in Landover, Maryland.

Mark A. Cohen, Ph.D., is associate professor at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, Nashville,

Tennessee. Brian Wiersema is research coordinator for the Violence Research Group, Department of Criminology and

Criminal Justice, University of Maryland at College Park.

This project was supported under award number 90–IJ–CX–0050 by the National Institute of Justice,

Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, and by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, U.S. Department of

Health and Human Services. Opinions or points of view expressed in this document are

those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the sponsoring agencies.

NCJ 155282
ii

Table of Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 1

The incidents of crime ................................................................................................................................... 2

Costs and Consequences of Victimization.............................................................................................................. 9

Tangible losses ............................................................................................................................................ 10

Intangible losses .......................................................................................................................................... 14

Victimization and victim costs per crime ............................................................................................. 15

Aggregate annual victim costs in the United States ............................................................................. 17

Special breakdown of cost estimates: domestic crime and crimes against children ..................................... 19

Who pays the crime bill? ............................................................................................................................. 19

Uncertainty of the estimates and sensitivity analysis ................................................................................... 19

Number of victimizations ..................................................................................................................... 19

Monetary valuation of intangible losses ............................................................................................... 21

Comparison with prior estimates.......................................................................................................... 22

Future Research .................................................................................................................................................. 25

References........................................................................................................................................................... 27

iii
1

Introduction

ful both in characterizing the crime problem and in examining ways to address it. Ignoring the nonmonetary benefits of

crime reduction can lead to a misallocation of resources. For

example, suppose that an additional year of incarceration for

a rape offender would prevent one additional rape incident.

Considering only tangible, out-of-pocket costs, the average

rape (or attempted rape) costs $5,100—less than the

$15,000–$20,000 annual cost of a prison cell. The bulk of

these expenses are medical and mental health care costs to

victims. However, if rape’s effect on the victim’s quality of

life is quantified, the average rape costs $87,000—many

times greater than the cost of prison.

By allowing analysts to combine statistics on disparate

crimes into a single, readily understood metric, monetary

valuations of crime costs can help guide resource allocations

across crimes. For example, is a patrol pattern that prevents

a rape better than one that prevents three burglaries? One

way to answer such a question is to ask residents of the affected area, through polling or referendums, which they prefer. In many instances, however, policymakers must rely on

less direct methods of determining an appropriate choice. In

such cases, one would need to have a metric that allows for

comparisons between rapes and burglaries.

Although placing a dollar value on the suffering resulting

from violent crime may seem cold and impersonal, such information is useful in the public policy arena. Without a

common metric to compare various crimes, it is difficult to

assess the merits of criminal justice or victim assistance

programs. For example, the aggregate out-of-pocket costs of

rape are about $7.5 billion, roughly equal to the out-ofpocket costs to burglary victims and less than the approximately $9 billion cost to larceny victims. Yet the crimes of

burglary and larceny have much less severe psychological

effects on victims. When pain, suffering, and lost quality of

life are quantified, the cost of rape—$127 billion—dwarfs

the estimated costs of either burglary or larceny.

Violence against children is one of the least well-documented areas of personal crime. This Research Report presents several new estimates of the incidence, costs, and

consequences of violence against children. Although this

study’s results should be viewed as preliminary, they

This Research Report documents the results of a 2-year

multidisciplinary research effort to estimate the costs and

consequences of personal crime for Americans. Personal

crime is estimated to cost $105 billion annually in medical

costs, lost earnings, and public program costs related to victim assistance. These tangible losses do not account for the

full impact of crime on victims, however, because they ignore pain, suffering, and lost quality of life. Including pain,

suffering, and the reduced quality of life increases the cost

of crime to victims to an estimated $450 billion annually.

Violent crime (including drunk driving and arson) accounts

for $426 billion of this total, property crime $24 billion.

These estimates exclude several crimes that were not included in this study but that also have large impacts, notably many forms of white collar crime (including personal

fraud) and drug crimes.

Below are some yardsticks that put the costs into context.

■ Violent crime causes 3 percent of U.S. medical spending

and 14 percent of injury-related medical spending.

■ Violent crime results in wage losses equivalent to 1

percent of American earnings.

■ Violent crime is a significant factor in mental health care

usage. As much as 10 to 20 percent of mental health care

expenditures in the United States may be attributable to

crime, primarily for victims treated as a result of their victimization. About half of these expenditures are for child

abuse victims who are receiving treatment for abuse experienced years earlier. These estimates do not include any

treatment for perpetrators of violence.

■ Personal crime reduces the average American’s quality of

life by 1.8 percent. Violence alone causes a 1.7 percent

loss. These estimates are conservative. They include only

costs to victimized households, ignoring the broader

impact of crime-induced fear on our society.

This study highlights the importance of explicitly considering crime victims’ pain, suffering, and lost quality of life

when analyzing public policy. A complete characterization

of criminal victimization costs can be an important tool in

formulating criminal justice policy. Identifying and quantifying costs and consequences of victimization may be help-
2

suggest that violence against children accounts for a significant portion of our nationwide victim costs. Out-of-pocket

costs for child victims are estimated to be more than 20 percent of all out-of-pocket crime victim costs and more than

35 percent of all costs (including pain, suffering, and lost

quality of life).

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is the

government’s main source of information about criminal victimization. To collect information for the NCVS, the Bureau

of Justice Statistics polls people over age 12 about rape,

robbery, assault, larceny, burglary, and motor vehicle theft.

Partly because of the difficulty in obtaining certain information in a survey format, the NCVS does not collect data on

certain crime categories (such as child abuse and drug

abuse) and undercounts others (such as rape and domestic

violence). The NCVS format does not attempt to comprehensively measure crime costs and consequences or document

and assess crime-induced permanent disability and mental

health treatment, which would cover such intangibles as the

pain, suffering, fear, and lost quality of life that victimization brings. The survey documents numbers of crimes as reported by households and asks victims to quantify their

short-term out-of-pocket losses due to victimization. This

Research Report aims to add valuable information to the

findings of the NCVS by estimating the full cost of crime to

victims and by including many other types of crime.

The incidents of crime

Number of victimizations. It is difficult to know how much

crime is committed in the United States. The Federal

Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

collect data from police departments about the number of

crimes reported or known to the police. The NCVS survey

of households also obtains information about crimes not

known to the police and thus identifies more criminal offenses than the UCR, but it still probably undercounts

the total crimes, especially those regarding gunshot and

knife assaults, domestic violence, and rape (National Research Council, 1993). As mentioned previously, the NCVS

also excludes many crimes, among them murder, arson,

drunk driving, child abuse and neglect, and crimes against

children under 12. Also, the survey sample of U.S. households largely omits the homeless and others not attached to

traditional households.

This project reviewed available estimates of the underreported crimes, seeking more comprehensive incidence

data. The data sources included national surveys and local

studies. One difficulty with analyzing these studies was the

variety of definitions used for the same crime. For example,

some researchers defined rape as any unwanted sexual encounter, whether or not the victim believed she had been

raped. Others were more restrictive, including only forced

penetration that the victim characterized as rape. Another

problem is that many studies have not used nationally

representative samples; also, rape surveys have often polled

only women. Ultimately, the researchers for this project focused almost entirely on data from nationally representative

surveys where the crime definition was clearly reported. In

some cases, they generated new estimates of crime incidence based on an analysis of earlier studies.

Total crimes. People and households in the United States

faced more than 49 million crime attempts annually in

1987–1990. Table 1 classifies these crimes. The annual toll

includes more than 16 million violent crimes and attempted

crimes (murder, rape, robbery, assault, child abuse, drunk

driving, and arson). In 1990, 31,000 deaths resulted.

Table 1 distinguishes between victims and victimizations.

The victimization counts in the last column of table 1 differ

from most published NCVS counts. The reason is that the

researchers included series victimizations, a chain of three

or more similar crimes that respondents did not describe in

detail. The NCVS asks series victims to estimate how many

times they were victimized. Recent NCVS validation efforts

suggest respondents can remember details of up to six related victimizations if pressed. This study accepted the serial victimization counts to a maximum of 10 per series but

examined the effect of more and less aggressive choices in

sensitivity analysis. Thus, if a man beat his wife every Saturday night, for example, table 1 records 1 victim and 10 victimizations annually (labeled “series=r”). Table 1 also

shows a more conservative victimization count that treats a

series of crimes which the victim is unwilling to describe individually as a single victimization (labeled “series=1”).

Even this count exceeds NCVS victimization counts, which

completely exclude the series victimizations.

The victim counts in table 1 generally are not additive between crime types. The same person may be the victim of a

rape and a burglary during one year, so the sum would

double count. Duplication was eliminated within the NCVS

data, however. The unduplicated annual victim count for

NCVS crimes alone approaches 31 million.
3

Table 1

Victims and Victimizations, 1987–1990 (average)

Victims Victimizations

Series = 1 Series = r

Fatal Crime (1990) 31,079 31,079 31,079

 Rape-Murder 265 265 265

 Robbery Deaths 2,384 2,384 2,384

 Child Abuse Deaths 791 791 791

 Child Neglect Deaths 464 464 464

 Other Fatal Assault 20,164 20,164 20,164

 Arson Deaths 864 864 864

 Drunk Driving Deaths (DWI) 6,147 6,147 6,147

Child Abuse 794,000 878,000 926,000+

 Completed Rape 71,000 71,000 90,000

 Other Sexual Abuse 114,000 114,000 143,000

 Physical Abuse 308,000 355,000 355,000+

 Emotional Abuse 301,000 337,000 337,000+

Rape and Sexual Assault

 (excluding Child Abuse) 1,133,000 1,163,000 1,467,000

Other Assault/Attempt Unknown 7,326,000 9,906,000

 NCVS with Injury 1,400,000 1,790,000 2,327,000

 Age 0–11 with Injury 97,000 107,000 139,000

 Non-NCVS Domestic 1,645,000 1,645,000 1,919,000

 No Injury 3,065,000 3,784,000 5,521,000

Robbery/Attempt 1,084,000 1,135,000 1,351,000

 With Injury 387,000 398,000 480,000

 No Injury 697,000 737,000 871,000

Drunk Driving Unknown 2,283,000 2,283,000

 With Injury Unknown 509,000 509,000

 No Injury Unknown 1,774,000 1,774,000

Arson Unknown 137,000 137,000

 With Injury Unknown 15,000 15,000

 Fires, No Injury Unknown 122,000 122,000

Larceny/Attempt 20,200,000 22,834,000 25,012,000

Burglary/Attempt 5,217,000 5,681,000 6,321,000

Motor Vehicle Theft/Attempt 1,677,000 1,742,000 1,813,000

Total Unknown 43,000,000 49,000,000+

Notes:

(1) “Victims” counts the number of individuals who were victimized at any time during the year. “Victimization” counts the number of times that any

individual was victimized. Totals were computed before rounding. See text.

(2) Drunk driving counts ignore deaths or injuries to those who are perpetrators and are thus restricted to innocent victims. Arson count excludes

wildfires without injury. Fatal crime counts are for 1990. “No injury” cases involve no physical injury but may involve psychological injury.
4

The section that follows systematically describes the findings about crimes for which this study’s incidence estimates

go beyond those of the NCVS.

Fatal crimes. Including victims of drunk drivers, crime took

31,079 lives in 1990. This count largely derives from Vital

Statistics data, which recorded 4,500 crime deaths, primarily negligent manslaughter cases, excluded from the

Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports.

The number excluded deaths due to legal intervention,

as well as 2,376 deaths of unknown intent, many of them

poisonings and firearm deaths. Some of the latter deaths

probably were homicides. For example, child abuse deaths

are likely to be undercounted because some children who

allegedly die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) are

actually abuse victims. Vital Statistics data also exclude

victims whose bodies are never recovered. The drunk driving count excludes intoxicated drivers and nonoccupants.

As described below, the number further reduces the victim

count in an attempt to remove crash deaths that would have

happened even if everyone involved had been sober.

Child abuse. Existing estimates of child abuse vary considerably. The two main sources of national information on

child abuse are the National Incidence and Prevalence

Survey of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS) (Sedlak, 1991) and

the National Family Violence Surveys (Gelles and Straus,

1985; Straus and Gelles, 1976). The latter produce estimates far greater than the former, mainly due to differences

in the samples employed. Gelles and Straus used a probability sample of adults with children, and Sedlak relied on a

sample of child protective services (CPS) and other government agencies to generate counts of actual cases that came

to their attention. The CPS-based estimate undoubtedly represented only serious cases and is thus an underestimate of

the total number of child abuse victims. The Gelles and

Straus estimates were based on self-reported behaviors that

are difficult to validate with external measures.

This study’s researchers base estimates on data from the

1986 NIS but use a statistical technique, capture-recapture

modeling, that estimates the number of people unknown to

the system from the number detected by various sources

(Miller, Kilpatrick, and Resnick, 1994). The estimates are

conservative. They largely exclude the 1.3 million cases annually that child protective services agencies are unable to

substantiate or do not classify as abuse and neglect using

NIS definitions.

The unduplicated count of 1990 abuse victims is at least

794,000. In order of precedence for victims of multiple

types of abuse, 185,000 children were sexually abused,

308,000 were physically abused, and 301,000 were emotionally abused. Unlike the victim count, the victimization

count (table 1) treats a child who was the victim of both

physical and sexual abuse as being victimized twice.

The estimate is thus higher than Sedlak’s estimate of

590,800 total abuse cases (of which 133,600 were sexual

abuse victims) but lower than Straus and Gelles’ estimates.

Straus and Gelles (1986, 1987) estimated about 1.3 million

children are physically abused annually, including children

targeted with thrown objects that missed their mark.

Several recent national surveys have found physical abuse

rates at or substantially above the estimates in table 1. This

project’s estimate equates to about 13–17 million adults who

were physically abused by parents or adult caretakers as

children and 355,000 new physical abuse cases annually.

The Commonwealth Fund (1993) estimated that 20 million

adults were “physically abused” by someone as children.

The Family Violence Prevention Fund (EDK Associates,

1993) estimate is that 15 million adults were “beaten by

their parents or witnessed a sibling’s beating.” This estimate

probably is low since people who had never witnessed a parent beating a child were not asked if they personally had

been beaten.

More recently, Finkelhor and Dziuba-Leatherman (1994)

used a telephone survey of youths to estimate the criminal

victimizations of children ages 10–16 during 1991. They

estimated that 0.5 percent of children ages 10–16 were victimized by a parent or parent-substitute. Based on Sedlak’s

(1991) estimate that 89 percent of child physical abuse

was by a parent or substitute, and an estimated 24.3 million

children ages 10–16, the Finkelhor and Dziuba-Leatherman

estimate translates into 246,000 child abuse victims (with

95 percent confidence limits of 137,000 to 355,000). By

comparison, the present study estimates 170,000 child

physical abuse victims ages 10–16 (out of 308,000 child

abuse victims).

Rape. Until 1992, the NCVS did not ask directly about rape,

but left it to the victim to mention (and define), a method

that resulted in criticism for undercounting rape. After an

extensive redesign process, a new NCVS questionnaire was

fielded in 1992 that, among other things, directly asks about

rape. Preliminary data released in the fall of 1994 suggest
5

that estimates of completed and attempted rape are about

2.7 times higher than those based on the older questionnaire. In addition, the new form developed estimates of

nonrape sexual assault for the first time. Together, 607,000

rapes and other sexual assaults were estimated to have occurred in 1992 (BJS, October 1994). This amount excludes

about 114,000 rape or sexual assault victims who were subject to series rapes in excess of six or more times and an

additional 113,000 victims of “unwanted sexual contact

without force.” If these estimates are added together, there

were approximately 834,000 victims in 1992.

Because the redesigned NCVS instrument had not yet been

implemented at the time of this research (i.e., as of May

1995, the 1992 data files had not yet been released), alternative national estimates of rape were used. The best data

the researchers could find that coincided with the time period under study were produced from the National Women’s

Study (NWS) developed by Kilpatrick et al. (1992). The

NWS surveyed women age 18 years and older in 1990 and

found approximately 683,000 women had been raped or

sexually assaulted in the previous year. Followups of the

same sample (providing 1-year bounded reference periods)

in 1991 and 1992 produced annual estimates averaging

632,000, an amount that closely matched the original findings (Kilpatrick et al., 1994). Kilpatrick’s questions about

rape were clear and direct. They explicitly included vaginal

intercourse, oral and anal sex, and/or other sexual penetration by force, threat of force, or lack of consent. The

Kilpatrick numbers are similar to the preliminary estimates

from the 1992 NCVS, even though the questions were

worded differently. Using the Kilpatrick estimates for 1990

is thus not an unreasonable approach to avoiding the

undercount in the pre-1992 NCVS.

Several adjustments to the Kilpatrick estimates are necessary for comparability with the rest of this study’s incidence

data. This research started with the 1991–92 Kilpatrick estimate of the number of adult female rape victims (632,000).

Because Kilpatrick surveyed only women, the ratio of female to male rapes in the NCVS (17 percent of victims are

male) was used to inflate the estimate. Next, because persons under 18 were not included in the NWS, an adjustment

for child rapes was made. The NWS asked women if they

were raped as children. From these responses, the number

of children that would have been raped per year was estimated in order to report such a response as adults. Although

the NWS did distinguish attempts from completed rapes, it

is not clear whether respondents excluded attempts; it is

also possible that respondents to the pre-1992 NCVS considered oral sex and other sexual assaults as attempted assaults, events that Kilpatrick defines as rape. To be

conservative, this study did not, therefore, increase the

NWS completed rape estimate to account for attempts. Finally, because the Kilpatrick estimate is a prevalence estimate (a count of victims) and not an incidence estimate (a

count of victimizations), the NWS figure was multiplied by

1.27, the ratio of victimizations to victims from NCVS. The

result is an estimated 1.1 million rape and sexual assault

victims—very close to the recently released redesigned

NCVS preliminary estimates of 834,000 victims noted

above.

Assault. There is no single source of data on assaults. Based

on NCVS data, an estimated 7.8 million assaults and attempted assaults occur annually, representing about 4.4

million victims. About 30 percent of these assaults involve

injury. Table 1 breaks out the NCVS assaults into those with

and without injuries. The NCVS excludes children under

age 12 and undercounts domestic assaults.

To supplement the data, this study estimates that nonfatal

assaults against children under age 12 number 139,000 annually (97,000 victims). To avoid double counting, this estimate excludes physical child abuse, defined as assault by

adult caretakers or by others who parents let assault their

children (Sedlak, 1991). This estimate was computed by

multiplying the NCVS count of nondomestic assaults on

children ages 12–17 times the ratio of medically treated

nondomestic assaults for children ages 0–11 versus children

ages 12–17. That ratio came from proprietary health care

system data on 13,528 hospitalized crime victims and

65,555 crime victims treated in emergency rooms and released. (By comparison, the unweighted 1987–91 NCVS

data included fewer than 250 overnight hospital admissions

and 1,000 other victims treated in hospital emergency or

outpatient departments.) The hospitalized data cover all victims admitted in California, Vermont, and Washington at

times when those States required coding of injury causes.

The nonhospitalized data are from a convenience sample of

21 hospital emergency departments spread across 9 cities.

They include all but one of the emergency departments this

study could identify nationally that coded injury cause and

type and maintained data on extractable computer files.

However, since these emergency departments are not nationally representative samples, the assault count for children under age 12 should be viewed as preliminary and is

reported separately.
6

Drunk driving. Drunk driving is illegal. This study considers it a violent crime when a drunk driver maims or kills innocent victims or damages their property. Some crashes

involving a drunk driver, however, would have happened

even if the driver had been sober. They might have been

due to a mechanical failure, the error of another driver or

pedestrian, or an error the drunk driver would have made

even when sober. Therefore, simply counting the number of

crashes where one driver had a blood alcohol content (BAC)

of 0.1 percent or more would overestimate the harm attributable to drunk driving. To estimate attributable crashes, this

study relied on the methodology in Levy and Miller (1995).

These estimates are somewhat tentative as they were based

on a 1962 Michigan study that attempted to differentiate between crashes that were “caused” by drunk driving and

those that would have occurred anyway. The U.S. Department of Transportation is currently updating that 1962

study.

Drunk drivers victimize almost 2.9 million innocent people

annually. Because they are driving drunk, they kill about

6,150 people, physically injure 500,000, involve another

2.4 million people in sometimes psychologically devastating

crashes, and damage 1.15 million vehicles.

Arson. Arson injures relatively few people but can be

deadly. The arson counts are from the National Fire Incident Reporting System. They include all arson fires that

damaged buildings or vehicles and outdoor fires that resulted in death or physical injury.

Excluded crime. This study focuses on crimes against persons or households. Some incidents—like child neglect—

that may not be characterized as crimes in all States and

have varying definitions are excluded. Also excluded are

crimes against business (theft, fraud, embezzlement, etc.);

crimes against the government (regulatory offenses, fraud,

tax evasion, etc.); all forms of white collar crime (including

fraud); and most “victimless” crimes such as drug offenses,

gambling, loan sharking, and prostitution. Here are some of

the estimates on the prevalence of these crimes:

Criminal child neglect. This form of child maltreatment is

defined by State laws in widely varying ways and is generally a misdemeanor. Several States’ neglect statutes, for example, include “environmental neglect,” essentially failure

to provide shelter. That makes homelessness a crime. Such

neglect could be the result of poverty and the inability of the

social services system to find the family a home rather than

Nonfatal domestic assaults have been undercounted in the

NCVS. Of the 4.4 million assault victims identified in the

NCVS, only about 355,000 were domestic assault cases.

Straus and Gelles (1986) estimated that 2 million people endure severe spousal violence annually (interpreted here as

violence with at least minor physical injury), with an additional 2 million subjected to less severe violence. Straus and

Gelles’ estimates are open to criticism (National Research

Council, 1993). A further concern about these estimates is

that domestic rape often may be included.

The Straus and Gelles severe violence estimate appears to

be better than its critics claim. Under some reasonable assumptions, it proved consistent with NCVS data. Assume

the underreporting rate for domestic rape relative to other

rape in the NCVS equals the underreporting rate for domestic assault. Under this assumption, physically injured domestic assault victims would number about 1.75 million

annually. This estimate should be lower than Straus’ and

Gelles’ estimate; it excludes assaults by unmarried partners,

which Straus and Gelles include.

The Straus and Gelles estimates also are consistent with the

1993 Commonwealth Fund survey. In this survey, 3.9 million women reported physical abuse by their partners, with

far more reporting verbal or emotional abuse. As a final confirmation of the Straus and Gelles estimates, with the NCVS

distribution of medical treatment and victimizations per victim for domestic assault, they imply 1.85 million emergency

department visits annually. For women, the total would be

25 percent of injury visits, excluding visits due to motor vehicle crashes— 21 percent including these visits (computed

from the injury visit count in McCaig, 1994). Four emergency department studies find this percentage ranges from

16 to 30 percent.

Due to their tenuous nature, this study included only the estimates of 2 million spousal victims with severe enough violence to cause injury. This number has been reduced by

355,000 victims of domestic violence estimated in the

NCVS data. Thus, table 1 contains a separate entry for

1,645,000 “non-NCVS domestic” victims.

Since NCVS undercounts gunshot and knife assaults with

physical injury, estimates of gunshot assaults came from nationally representative health care data. The knife assault

estimate was computed from the gun assault estimate and

the health care data used in the child assault analysis (see

Miller and Cohen, 1995).
7

a deliberate attempt to harm the child. Few States require

Child Protective Services (CPS) to report cases that they

substantiate to the police. Instead, CPS and Family Courts

resolve many cases. Criminally neglected children are victims and may require outside intervention if they are to become productive members of society. Because of the

difficulties noted above, child neglect is not included in the

victimization estimates in table 1. However, using the same

methodology employed for child abuse (applying capture-recapture modeling to the 1986 NIS data), an estimated 1.7

million children were neglected. This includes about

1,236,000 children who were physically neglected and another 475,000 who were subject to educational neglect.

These estimates are for children who were not otherwise

child abuse victims.

Personal fraud. According to a National Institute of Justice

survey (Titus, Heinzelmann, and Boyle, 1995), 24 million

Americans experience more than 38 million fraud attempts

annually. The survey defined fraud as “involving the deliberate attempt to deceive with promises of goods, services, or

other financial benefits that in fact do not exist or that were

never intended to be provided.”

Drug abuse. According to the 1992 National Household

Survey on Drug Abuse, about 11 percent of Americans age

12 or older admitted using an illicit drug at least once

within the past year. This translates into approximately 22.8

million drug users. However, only about half of that number

reported using an illicit drug within the past month. One estimate is that about 5.5 million Americans are “in need of

treatment” (ONDCP, 1991).
8
9

Costs and Consequences of Victimization

Miller, and Rossman (1994) and Cunningham, Strauchs, and

Van Meter (1991). To victims, the costs are mainly (1) outof-pocket expenses such as medical bills and property

losses, (2) reduced productivity at work, home, and school,

and (3) nonmonetary losses—such as fear, pain, suffering,

and lost quality of life. Although some of these losses are

tangible and easily quantified, even the intangible losses

(such as lost quality of life) may be valued in dollar terms

(Cohen, 1988).

Table 2 contains a detailed estimate of each category of

victimization cost on a per-crime basis. These costs are

Crimes—both violent and nonviolent—impose many different kinds of losses on both victims and society. The costs

and consequences of crime are categorized in the section

“Comprehensive List of Costs and Consequences of Crime.”

This study focuses on victims’ costs; hence it ignores

society’s response to victimization—including the very real

costs to the criminal justice system and other social costs

associated with the fear of crime, such as changed behavior

(failure to walk outside at night, moving to safer neighborhoods, etc.) and private security expenditures by the general

population who are concerned about crime. More details

about the nonvictim costs of crime are contained in Cohen,

Table 2

Losses per Criminal Victimization (Including Attempts)

Medical Mental Police/ Social/ Property Subtotal:

Produc- Care/Am- Health Fire Victim Loss/ Tangible Quality

tivity bulance Care Services Services Damage Losses of Life Total

Fatal Crime

 Rape, Assault, etc. $1,000,000 $16,300 $4,800 $1,300 $0 $120 $1,030,000 $1,910,000 $2,940,000

 Arson Deaths 724,000 17,600 4,800 1,900 0 21,600 770,000 1,970,000 2,740,000

 DWI 1,150,000 18,300 4,800 740 0 9,700 1,180,000 1,995,000 3,180,000

Child Abuse 2,200 430 2,500 29 1,800 10 7,931 52,371 60,000

 Sexual Abuse (incl. rape) 2,100 490 5,800 56 1,100 0 9,500 89,800 99,000

 Physical Abuse 3,400 790 2,700 20 2,100 26 9,000 57,500 67,000

 Emotional Abuse 900 0 2,700 20 2,100 0 5,700 21,100 27,000

Rape & Sexual Assault

 (excluding Child Abuse) 2,200 500 2,200 37 27 100 5,100 81,400 87,000

Other Assault or Attempt 950 425 76 60 16 26 1,550 7,800 9,400

 NCVS with Injury 3,100 1,470 97 84 46 39 4,800 19,300 24,000

 Age 0–11 with Injury 2,800 1,470 100 84 46 39 4,600 28,100 33,000

 Non-NCVS Domestic 760 310 81 0 0 39 1,200 10,000 11,000

 No Injury 70 0 65 69 9 15 200 1,700 2,000

Robbery or Attempt 950 370 66 130 25 750 2,300 5,700 8,000

 With Injury 2,500 1,000 65 160 44 1,400 5,200 13,800 19,000

 No Injury 75 0 66 110 15 400 700 1,300 2,000

Drunk Driving 2,800 1,400 82 40 ? 1,600 6,000 11,900 18,000

 With Injury 12,100 6,400 82 120 ? 3,600 22,300 48,400 71,000

 No Injury 170 0 82 17 0 1,000 1,300 1,400 2,700

Arson 1,750 1,100 18 1,000 ? 15,500 19,500 18,000 37,500

 With Injury 15,400 10,000 24 1,000 ? 22,400 49,000 153,000 202,000

 No Injury 8 0 18 1,000 0 14,600 16,000 500 16,000

Larceny or Attempt 8 0 6 80 1 270 370 0 370

Burglary or Attempt 12 0 5 130 5 970 1,100 300 1,400

Motor Vehicle Theft or Attempt 45 0 5 140 0 3,300 3,500 300 3,700

* Child Neglect 25 3 910 2 840 0 1,800 7,900 9,700

Notes: All estimates in 1993 dollars. Totals may not add due to rounding. Major categories are in bold, subcategories listed under bold headings.

 ? = unknown. * Non-educational child neglect is not included in any of the total figures reported in the remaining tables. See text.
10

averages and include attempts that result in minimal consequences as well as extremely violent crimes that result in

long hospital stays and devastate victims’ quality of life for

years to come. Thus, the fact that the average rape costs

about $500 in medical expenses reflects the fact that only

about 25 percent of all rape victims in the NCVS reported receiving any medical treatment; only about 2 percent of rape

victims stayed overnight in a hospital. A brief explanation

of what these categories are and how they were estimated

follows.

Tangible losses

■ Property damage and loss: the value of property damaged

and of property taken and not recovered, plus insurance

claims administration costs that arise in compensating victims’ property losses.

Most of these losses are taken directly from NCVS data. In

cases where losses were insured, 16 percent was added to

account for insurance claims processing costs, a published

loss-adjustment expense ratio from Best (1993). Supplementary published sources were also used for drunk driving

(Miller and Blincoe, 1994) and arson cases (Hall, 1993).

Property damage is typically a very small percentage of the

cost of violent crime, often less than 1 percent of the total

tangible costs. However, costs related to property damage are

typically the bulk (60–80 percent) of the cost of property/

household crimes such as burglary, larceny, and arson. The

average arson victim incurs $15,500 in property damage; the

average motor vehicle theft costs $3,300; while the average

property value loss to robbery victims is $750.

■ Medical care: payments for hospital and physician care, as

well as emergency medical transport, rehabilitation, prescriptions, allied health services, medical devices, coroner

costs, premature funeral expenses, and related insurance

claims processing costs. Also included in this category are

victim legal expenses incurred in recovering medical costs

from drunk drivers and their insurers.

Although the NCVS contains estimates of medical care costs,

these estimates are self-reported by victims and only include

medical costs up to a few months after the incident. This approach underestimates medical costs because the victim may

not receive bills for the full cost of medical care, and it does

not consider long-term costs. Although NCVS provides some

details on the nature of injury, the categories are quite broad,

e.g., broken bones or gunshot wounds and hospitalized versus nonhospitalized status.

In order to estimate lifetime medical costs, this study

started with the distribution of injuries as reported in NCVS

and made several adjustments. For hospitalized injuries,

within the broad NCVS injury categories, an estimate was

developed of the “ICD9” (International Classifications of

Diseases, Ninth Edition, Clinical Modification Code) injury

distribution by examining all hospitalized injuries in California, Vermont, and Washington, three States that have

identified injuries by ICD9 code and cause (allowing us to

isolate violence victims from unintentional victims and suicide attempts). Using the actual lengths of hospital stay

from the State data and the medical payments per day (and

other injury information) by ICD9 code from Miller, Pindus

et al. (1995), the treatment costs were estimated for each

hospitalized assault or rape victim. The average cost per injury by NCVS injury category was then computed. Although

having a nationally representative sample of hospitalized

intentional injuries would have been preferred, using all

hospitalized rape and assault cases in only States that collected these data seemed reasonable. Since the research

started with NCVS broad injury categories, the research

team only used the three-State injury data to estimate the

body parts and severity of injury within each category. It is

unlikely that the typical “broken bone” in these three

States is significantly more or less severe than the typical

broken bone elsewhere in the United States. Data becoming

available in 1994–1996 from a dozen other States will allow

verification of this hypothesis.

For nonhospitalized injuries a similar approach was tried,

but the estimated short-term medical costs by injury category were so similar to the NCVS estimates that the NCVS

estimates of short-term costs were used. These estimates

were multiplied by lifetime-to-short-term-cost ratios for

nonhospitalized injuries by ICD9 code groupings (in the

NCVS categories) computed from the ratios in Miller,

Pindus et al. (1995) and the injury distribution from 21

hospital emergency departments that code ICD9 nature of

injury and cause of injury for nonadmitted injuries.

The researchers know of no estimates of the medical costs

associated with homicide victims. Instead, medical costs for

fatal injuries were taken from Miller, Pindus et al. (1995),

based on all fatal workers’ compensation cases in 41 States.

Similarly, virtually no estimates of medical costs are available for child abuse. Data on medical costs per child abuse

case were obtained directly from the above-mentioned

health care data and an inferred hospitalization rate. Thus,
11

Cost Category Party Who Directly

Bears Cost

I. Costs of Crime

*Direct Property Losses

 (1) Losses not reimbursed by insurance Victim

 (2) Losses reimbursed by insurance Society

 (3) Administrative cost: insurance

 reimbursement Society

 (4) Recovery by police Society

*Medical and Mental Health Care

 (1) Costs not reimbursed by insurance Victim/Victim’s

family/Society

 (2) Costs reimbursed by insurance Society

 (3) Administrative overhead of insurance

 coverage (2) above Society

*Victim Services

 (1) Expenses charged to victim Victim

 (2) Expenses paid by agency Society

 (3) Temporary labor and training of

replacements Society

*Lost Workdays

 (1) Lost wages for unpaid workday Victim

 (2) Lost productivity Society/Employer

*Lost School Days

 (1) Foregone wages due to lack of

 education Victim

 (2) Foregone nonpecuniary benefits

 of education Victim

 (3) Foregone social benefits due to

 lack of education Society

*Lost Housework Victim

**Pain and Suffering/Quality of Life Victim

**Loss of Affection/Enjoyment Victim’s family

*Death

 (1) Lost Quality of Life Victim

 (2) Loss of Affection/Enjoyment Victim’s family

 (3) Funeral and burial expenses Victim’s family

 (4) Psychological injury/treatment Victim’s family

Legal Costs Associated With Tort Victim or Victim’s

 Claims family

“Second Generation Costs”

 (1) Future victims of crime committed by

 earlier victims Future victims

 (2) Future social costs associated with (1) Society,

victims,etc.

Comprehensive List of Costs and Consequences of Crime

Cost Category Party Who Directly

Bears Cost

II. Cost of Society’s Response to Crime

Precautionary Expenditures/Effort Potential victim

Fear of Crime Potential victim

Criminal Justice System

*(1) Police and investigative costs Society

(2) Prosecutors Society

(3) Courts Society

(4) Legal fees

(a) public defenders Society

(b) private Offenders

(5) Incarceration costs Society

(6) Nonincarcerative sanctions Society

*(7) Victim time Victim

(8) Jury and witness time Jury/Witness

Victim Services

*(1) Victim service organizations Society

(2) Victim service volunteer time Volunteers

(3) Victim compensation programs Society/Offender

*(4) Victim time Victim

Other NonCriminal Programs

(1) Hotlines and public service

 announcements Society

(2) Community treatment programs Society

(3) Private therapy/counseling Society/Offender

Incarcerated Offender Costs

(1) Lost wages Offender/Family

(2) Lost tax revenue and productivity Society

(3) Value of lost freedom Offender

(4) Psychological cost to family/loss

 of consortium Family of offender

“Overdeterrence” Costs

(1) Innocent individuals accused of Innocent

 offense individuals

(2) Restriction of legitimate activity Innocent

 individuals

(3) Actions taken by offenders to Society/Offender/

 avoid detection Victim

 (e.g., kill robbery victims to reduce

 chance of being caught)

“Justice” Costs

(1) Constitutional protections to

 avoid false accusations Society

(2) Cost of increasing detection rate Society

 to avoid differential punishment

Source: Adapted from Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994), tables 1 and 2.

* These items are included in the monetary estimates in this report.

** The monetary estimates in this report combine the categories of pain,

suffering, and lost quality of life to the victim and the loss of affection/

enjoyment to families categories.
12

this study’s estimates for child abuse should be viewed as

very rough and worthy of further study.

Insurance administrative costs were estimated to be 7.5

percent of medical costs covered under health insurance

policies and 13 percent for workers’ compensation-related

cases. These estimates were based on insurance statistics as

explained in Miller (1992, volume 2).

A final caveat on the costing methodology is that managed

care systems appear to be changing health care utilization

patterns and payments dramatically (e.g., the distribution of

hospitalized versus nonhospitalized incidents, length of stay,

etc.). The estimates do not reflect those changes.

■ Mental health care: payments for services to crime victims by psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and

pastoral counselors, and associated insurance claims processing costs.

This cost category has been one of the least studied areas of

crime costs. Since there were no known estimates available,

the research team conducted a pilot survey of 168 mental

health care professionals (Cohen and Miller, 1994b). This

survey, using a stratified random sample of members of

seven different professional organizations, asked respondents to detail the number of visits by clients being served

primarily as a result of crime victimization. (See “Mental

Health Care Following Victimization.”)

The average murder puts 1.5 to 2.5 people into counseling.

Rape and child abuse victims also frequently obtain mental

health care, with usage rates approaching 25–50 percent or

more. Thus, mental health care costs are the largest component of tangible losses for most forms of child abuse and

rape. For example, the cost of mental health care for the

typical child sexual abuse victim is estimated to be $5,800.

Mental health care usage for other crimes is much lower,

generally 1–4 percent of victims. Thus, the average cost per

victim is relatively small, generally under $100.

■ Police and fire services: initial police response and

followup investigation, as well as fire service costs related to

arson and drunk driving crashes. The cost of other aspects

of the criminal justice system is not included.

These estimates are derived from various surveys and other

published statistics on the cost of police and emergency response costs, many of which were reported in Cohen, Miller,

and Rossman (1994). Compared to the direct impact on victims, police and fire service costs are a relatively small portion

of the cost of crime, generally under $100 per case. However,

they add up to about $4 billion per year and may be a significant portion of municipal budgets. Exceptions are the costs of

Table 3

Annual Mental Health Care Use by Crime Victims (1991)

1000s of Crime Standard

Victims Treated Error (1000s) % Treated

(Mean Estimate)

Witnessing a Murder or Losing a

 Loved One to Murder 74 22 242

Rape/Recent Child Sexual Abuse 553 253 49*

Child Sexual Abuse Years Earlier 1,621 263 9

Recent Child Physical Abuse 370 116 42

Child Physical Abuse Years Earlier 1,003 255 4

Other Assault 412 71 4

Robbery 86 44 6

Drunk Driving 110 38 4

Arson 11 6.5 6

Larceny/Fraud/Other 64 24 0.1

Burglary/Theft 26 17 0.3

*The mean includes 72% of children raped by family members and 35% of other rapes.

Source: Cohen and Miller (1994b), survey of a stratified random sample of 168 mental health care providers. Percentage treated was computed from the incidence

estimates shown earlier, adjusted for respondent reports that 27% of victims are treated for more than 1 year.
13

arson and murder, which each average about $1,400 per incident. Unlike other crimes, where less than half are even reported to police, virtually all arson or murder cases involve

fire or police services.

■ Victim services: activities of Victim Services Agencies

and Child Protective Services agencies, as well as foster

care for maltreated children removed from their homes, special education for maltreated children, and services aimed

at reintegrating families with maltreatment problems.

Few data exist on the extent of victim services by type of

victim served. Since this study did not attempt to do primary

research in this area, the researchers had to rely on a few

existing studies. For the crimes of rape, robbery, and assault, victim service costs were based on the dollar value of

Federal Government grants to victim service agencies. This

estimate was inflated to account for the non-Federal portion,

as described in Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994). The result is an extremely conservative estimate that undercounts

many private organizations that do not receive Federal funding and ignores the value of time spent by volunteers in

these organizations. The estimate shown in table 2 that the

typical rape victim receives $27 in victim services is clearly

an underestimate. Further research on the full extent of victim services would be desirable.

Victim service costs for child abuse are much larger ($1,000

to $2,000 per incident). However, like victim services for

adults, these estimates are based on little hard data and several reasonable and conservative assumptions. These estimates primarily involve foster care stays and child

protective services for domestic child abuse victims (see

Daro, 1988; and McCurdy and Daro, 1993).

■ Productivity: wages, fringe benefits, housework, and school

days lost by victims and their families. This category also includes productivity lost by co-workers and supervisors recruiting and training replacements for disabled workers, worrying

about an injured co-worker, etc., and by people stuck in traffic

jams caused by drunk driving crashes. Finally, it includes insurance claims processing costs (for example, life insurance

claims for fatalities and workers’ compensation disability

claims for people victimized while working) and legal expenses incurred in recovering productivity losses from drunk

drivers and their insurers.

The NCVS data include estimates of the number of hours of

work and earnings lost due to medically related problems

associated with victimization. The research team imputed

Mental Health Care Following Victimization

One of the least documented consequences and costs of crime

is the mental health care treatment needed and received by victims and their families. Most previous studies have documented

mental health care for a nonrandom, clinical sample of victims.

This approach is useful for practitioners who need to understand major symptoms, treatment techniques, etc., but the studies are of limited value to researchers interested in the

frequency and severity of crime-induced mental health problems in the United States.

In order to begin to fill this gap, this study conducted a stratified

random sample of 168 mental health care professionals, including social workers, pastoral counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists (Cohen and Miller, 1994b). Respondents were asked

to identify the total number of clients they treated in one calendar year and the percentage of those who were treated primarily as a result of victimization (by type of crime). They were

also asked for the typical number of visits a crime victim would

make. Table 3 reports the annual mean and median number of

victims treated by type of crime, along with associated standard

errors. Both mean and median estimates are reported because

the means are generally much higher. Although medians are

generally more appropriate when sampling with small cell sizes,

a good case can be made for using mean estimates in this

study. In particular, there appears to be some specialization in

treating crime victims, as some respondents no doubt worked in

victim service organizations. For purposes of this study’s cost

estimates in the remainder of this document, the mean estimates are used. In the aggregate, the difference between the

mean and median estimates is about 20 percent, or $1 billion.

Although the results should be viewed as preliminary, if they

are replicated and expanded upon in the future, they could yield

important new findings. At least 10 percent and perhaps as

much as 20 percent of U.S. mental health care spending probably is used to treat victims of violence. Victim-related revenue

by mental health care providers in 1991 was estimated to be

between $5.8 billion and $6.8 billion, with about one-half of that

amount caused by crimes committed that year and the remainder caused by child abuse years earlier. Table 3 also shows estimated mental health services use rates by crime. Notably,

survey responses suggest that each murder puts 1.5 to 2.5 witnesses, friends, and relatives into therapy. Mental health treatment also is quite frequent following rape or child abuse known

to the authorities, with estimates ranging from 25–50 percent of

all victims receiving some form of mental health treatment.

Two caveats about this study’s survey are especially important

when interpreting the estimated rate of mental health care use

due to abuse years earlier. First, changes in public perceptions

probably make victims of child abuse much more likely to seek

mental health care today than in the past. Thus, there may be a

temporary increase in adults seeking help. If so, current adult

treatment rates traceable to childhood victimization may exceed

the long-term average. Second, the rates reported reflect therapists’ impressions about the reasons underlying treatment.

Their impressions are obviously imperfect and may be confounded by patients’ false memories and by other mental illness

risk factors in patients’ lives.
14

this information when it was missing. Following the procedure in Miller (1993), they estimated days of household

work lost from days of work lost. Based on employment status and age reported in NCVS, they estimated the value of

housework days lost by victims from the regression equations in Douglass et al. (1990). Since the NCVS only covers

short-term costs, the resulting data do not reflect lost productivity that occurs more than a few months after the

victimization. Although most crime victims have few longterm productivity losses, some suffer substantial wage

losses. Thus, the researchers used the expected lifetime

earnings (absent an injury) from a standard age-earnings

model similar to the model described in Rice et al. (1989)

and permanent disability probabilities from workers’ compensation claims (by body part and nature of injury) to estimate long-term productivity losses by body part and nature

of injury. Those estimates were then applied to the distribution of physical injuries in criminal victimizations.

Because of age-related differences in recuperative power,

the probabilities may underestimate the disability impacts

of crime against the elderly and infants or overestimate the

impacts of crime against youths. They also may underestimate disability probabilities due to the greater force and

targeting of vulnerable areas involving an intentional injury

as compared to a typical workplace injury. For example, a

knife that slips while slicing a bagel is likely to inflict less

damage than a knife that disarms a robber. This has a dramatic effect on estimated wage losses, with long-term losses

averaging 5 to 10 times the short-term losses. For example,

short-term productivity loss for the average assault victim

was estimated to be $356, while long-term productivity

losses were estimated to be $2,035.

Several smaller loss components were also estimated. NCVS

includes data on the number of hours of work and wages

lost by family members aiding victims and being involved

with victims in the legal system. The first component adds

about $5 to $10 per victim and the second adds about $10

to $20 per victim. For victims under age 12, this study assumed that an equal number of days of parent productivity

are lost when a child victim is medically treated as when a

family member loses work due to victimization of an unmarried, unemployed relative. The estimated losses average

$65 to $85 per child victim. Employers also suffer indirect

losses due to their employee’s victimization, such as management time hiring replacements and otherwise dealing

with the emotional trauma associated with an employee victimized by crime. Based on earlier studies by Miller (1992)

and Miller and Rossman (1990), this study very roughly estimated these losses to be approximately $120 to $140 per

rape, robbery, or assault victim.

Finally, school-age children who are victimized may be absent from school while they are recuperating. Based on the

number of work days lost for comparable crimes and injuries reported in the NCVS, the number of school days lost

for child victims were estimated. The researchers adopted a

straightforward and conservative approach to valuing a lost

school day by using the average amount spent on education

per child per day (see Cohen, Miller, and Rossman, 1994,

for details). Placing dollar values on the returns to education is a more appropriate measure of the loss but is a complicated theoretical and empirical exercise that is beyond

the scope of this project. However, since the average number of school days lost is relatively small, this cost category

will be a small portion of overall costs regardless of the

valuation approach.

Intangible losses

Unlike tangible losses such as medical expenses or lost

wages, pain, suffering, and reduced quality of life do not

have a market price and cannot be bought and sold. Nevertheless, these losses are real. Victims would pay dearly to

avoid them.

Economists use varied methods to place monetary values on

the intangible losses (see Cohen, Miller, and Rossman,

1994). Monetary estimates of lost quality of life due to fatalities are generally based on the amount people routinely

spend (in dollars or time) to reduce their risk of death.

(Miller, 1990; and Viscusi, 1993, review the extensive literature on this subject.) Typical studies have assessed the

market for safety by examining the increased demand for

smoke detectors as prices dropped, the demand for safer

cars, and the differential in worker pay due to different levels of risk exposure. Estimates of the monetary value of a fatality (including lost wages and other tangible losses) range

from $500,000 to $7 million. This study adopted the mean

estimate from the literature review and synthesis by Miller

(1990–adjusted to reflect victims’ life expectancies), a total

loss of about $2.7 million (inflated to 1993 dollars), with the

lost quality of life component being about $1.9 million.
15

For nonfatal injuries, the research team estimated values of

pain, suffering, fear, and lost quality of life by analyzing jury

awards to crime victims and burn victims (Cohen and Miller,

1994a; Miller, Brigham et al., 1993). Although violent offenders rarely have adequate assets and are thus infrequently sued for damages, some victims are able to sue third

parties for inadequate security or other forms of negligence.

These suits have become common enough that the researchers were able to obtain data from 1,106 jury awards and

settlements to assault survivors and 361 to rape survivors

(including 39 assault awards and many rape awards involving psychological injury only), as well as 606 to burn survivors (used to compute arson losses). This study ignored jury

awards for punitive damages and instead focused solely on

that portion of the jury verdict designed to “compensate” the

victim for pain, suffering, and lost quality of life. Since

cases brought to trial are not necessarily representative of

crime cases, the researchers could not apply the pain and

suffering estimates directly. Instead, they estimated the

functional relationship between the out-of-pocket costs of

crime (lost wages and medical expenses); characteristics of

the victim (age, sex, work status, etc.); severity of injury

(body part, hospitalization, etc.); and the jury’s award for

pain and suffering. This functional relationship was then applied to the actual distribution of crime victims in the

project’s data set. In this manner, the researchers were able

to estimate what the average jury award for pain and suffering would be for the typical crime in the project’s data set.

Analysis of jury awards was based on victims, not victimizations. The data did not permit disentanglement of the effect

of series victimizations on pain and suffering. Thus, the lost

quality of life estimates for nonfatal injuries (table 2) are

lower than the estimated jury award to a crime victim. For

example, from table 1 the researchers estimated that the 1.1

million rape victims suffer 1.45 million rape victimizations

annually. That means annual rape victimizations average

1.27 per victim. Multiplying 1.27 by the $81,400 quality of

life loss per rape victimization from table 2 yields estimated

quality of life losses of $103,400 per rape victim.

Serious errors can occur if policy analysts ignore the intangibles when allocating resources. For example, Cohen

(1988) describes a study of an early release program in

which the authors compared the out-of-pocket costs of crime

committed by early release recidivists to the savings to the

community that decided not to build more prison space.

That earlier study concluded that the program passed a

benefit-cost test. However, when the value of pain, suffering,

and lost quality of life were added, the early release program failed the benefit-cost test; more prison space was

preferable.

Today, benefit-cost analyses typically include the intangible

losses. Miller (1993) cites the extensive theoretical literature supporting their use. The U.S. Office of Management

and Budget (1989) requires regulatory analysts to use a

method that includes intangible losses whenever a benefitcost analysis values saving human lives.

Intangible costs—lost quality of life—are clearly the largest

cost component for crimes of violence. They are also subject

to the most uncertainty, a subject that is discussed in a later

section. Perhaps more importantly, however, intangible

costs are less meaningful when applied to any one particular

crime victim. For example, although the lost quality of life

shown in table 2 for a murder victim is $1.9 million, that

does not mean anyone would voluntarily exchange their life

for $1.9 million. Instead, that number is arrived at by estimating the incremental amount that individuals are willing

to pay for a reduced risk of death, where the commodity is

“risk of death,” not death itself. Thus, if 100,000 people

would collectively pay $30 each to reduce their risk of dying

from 1/100,000 to 0, one would say that the group values the

“statistical life” that is likely to be saved by $3 million ($30

x 100,000 people).

Victimization and victim costs per crime

As shown in table 2, intangible costs are the largest component for all but burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft.

Intangible pain, suffering, and lost quality of life costs generally exceed all other tangible categories combined. Within

the tangible loss category, productivity losses are generally

the largest, although medical costs are also substantial. For

example, the average rape victim incurs about $500 in

medical costs and $2,200 in productivity losses. Drunk driving victims average $1,400 in medical costs, while productivity losses are $2,700. If only those with injury are

included, medical costs increase to $6,400, while productivity losses increase to $15,400.

Table 4 summarizes the costs per crime in table 2 and provides two other methods of calculating total costs. The first

column repeats the estimates in table 2. The second column

excludes the crime of murder and instead allocates each

murder to its underlying crime. This is the approach taken
16

in Cohen (1988), where crime seriousness includes the fatality risks imposed on victims as well as the direct harm.

For example, a rape victim may be murdered in the course

of the rape. Table 2 (and the first column of table 3) counted

that victim as a murder victim. The second column of table

4 adds a risk of death component to these losses. This component equals the probability that a victim was murdered in

the course of victimization times the cost of a murder. To the

extent that juries include the risk of death in their pain and

suffering awards to victims of nonfatal crimes, this method

may double count.

The third and fourth columns in table 4 report on the cost

per victim instead of per crime or victimization. The earlier

columns (and table 2) use crimes or victimizations as the

unit of analysis. This distinction is important in domestic

violence, sexual assault, and other crimes prone to repeat

victimization.

Aside from murder, child sexual abuse is the most serious

crime, followed by rape, child physical abuse, and arson. In

terms of monetary and injury consequences, drunk driving

and arson are more serious crimes than robbery or assault.

Caution should be used in drawing inferences from these

comparisons, however, since the researchers could not always use consistent crime definitions. In particular, this

study’s NCVS crime estimates include attempts that may

result in little or no physical contact or injury. The cost per

arson case, however, does not include attempted arsons.

Drunk driving costs are somewhat unique. Since only the

cost of actual crashes is included, there is no cost estimate

associated with drunk drivers who pose only a risk of crash

and injury. However, the study includes drunk driving

crashes that result in property damages but no physical injury. Conceptually, one could argue that this is similar to including “attempts” since nobody is actually injured.

Following that line of reasoning, threats or verbal assaults

(which are not often included in the NCVS data and hence

are not in the cost estimates of assault) are similar to drunk

driving incidents that result in no crash.

Excluded costs. As mentioned above, this study deliberately

excludes two of the largest costs associated with crime—the

cost of operating the criminal justice system and the cost

Table 4

Crime Severity Measured by Monetized Losses per Crime Victimization

or per Crime Victim (in 1993 dollars)

Per Victimization Per Victim

w/o risk w/risk w/o risk w/risk

of death of death of death of death

Child Abuse: Sexual $99,000 * $125,000 *

Rape and Sexual Assault

 (excluding child abuse) $87,000 $87,000 $109,000 $110,000

Child Abuse: Physical 67,000 * 77,000 *

Child Abuse (all types) 60,000 63,000 70,000 74,000

Arson 38,000 54,000 38,000 54,000

Child Abuse: Emotional 27,000 * 30,000 *

Drunk Driving 18,000 26,000 18,000 26,000

Assault or Attempt (NCVS) 9,000 19,000 12,000 31,000

Assault (any) 9,000 15,000 14,000 23,000

Robbery or Attempt 8,000 13,000 10,000 16,000

Motor Vehicle Theft 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000

Burglary 1,400 1,500 1,600 1,700

Larceny 370 370 400 400

Note: Assault, robbery, motor vehicle theft, burglary, and larceny include “attempted” crimes that are never successfully carried out. If the other crime categories

excluded attempts, the arson and drunk driving categories might drop in the rankings. See text.

* Deaths due to child abuse are not categorized by type of child abuse (e.g., sexual, physical, or emotional). Thus, no estimates are provided that include the risk of

death. However, a combined child abuse category is included in this table, which includes the risk of death estimate.
17

Aggregate annual victim costs in the United States

The data in tables 1 and 2 can be combined to estimate the total cost of crime to victims in the United States as shown in

table 5. Including the value of intangible quality of life losses,

victim losses due to crimes against individuals and households amounted to $450 billion annually during the 1987–

1990 time period. This equals about $1,800 per U.S. resident.

Tangible costs alone exceed $400 per resident. These losses

included $18 billion in medical and mental heath care spending; $87 billion in other tangible costs; and pain, suffering,

and reduced quality of life valued at $345 billion. The largest

tangible expense is property damage and loss. The second

major tangible cost component is lost productivity.

All of the cost estimates reported here are expressed in discounted present value terms. In other words, although mediof actions taken to reduce the risk of becoming a crime victim. Instead, the focus is on quantifying the costs incurred

directly by or on behalf of the crime victim.

For lack of solid data, this study also omits some victimization costs. Major omissions include (1) expenses for processing public and private disability insurance payments and

welfare payments to those permanently disabled by crime,

(2) long-term effects on victim earnings resulting from psychological injury caused by domestic violence, and (3) “second generation costs” such as crimes committed by persons

who were themselves victims (such as juveniles or adults

who became criminals because they were neglected or

abused as children). See “Comprehensive List of Costs and

Consequences of Crime.”

Table 5

Annual Losses Due to Crime (M = millions, in 1993 dollars)

Other Quality

 Medical Tangible of Life Total

Fatal Crime (1990) $700 M $32,700 M $60,000 M $93,000 M

 Rape/Robbery/Abuse/Neglect/Assault 510 M 24,200 M 46,000 M 71,000 M

 Arson Deaths 20 M 600 M 1,700 M 2,000 M

 Drunk Driving Deaths (DWI) 140 M 7,100 M 12,300 M 20,000 M

Child Abuse 3,600 M 3,700 M 48,000 M 56,000 M

 Rape 560 M 300 M 8,000 M 9,000 M

 Sexual Abuse 900 M 500 M 12,800 M 14,000 M

 Physical Abuse 1,240 M 2,000 M 20,400 M 24,000 M

 Emotional Abuse 910 M 1,000 M 7,100 M 9,000 M

Rape and Sexual Assault 4,000 M 3,500 M 119,000 M 127,000 M

Other Assault or Attempt 5,000 M 10,000 M 77,000 M 93,000 M

 NCVS with Injury 3,640 M 7,500 M 44,900 M 56,000 M

 Age 0–11 with Injury 220 M 400 M 3,900 M 5,000 M

 Non-NCVS Domestic 740 M 1,500 M 19,100M 21,000 M

 No Injury 360 M 900 M 9,500 M 11,000 M

Robbery or Attempt 600 M 2,500 M 8,000 M 11,000 M

 With Injury 530 M 2,000 M 6,600 M 9,000 M

 No Injury 60 M 500 M 1,100 M 2,000 M

Drunk Driving 3,400 M 10,000 M 27,000M 41,000 M

 With Nonfatal Injury 3,300 M 8,000 M 24,600 M 36,000 M

 No Injury 150 M 2,200 M 2,500 M 5,000 M

Arson 160 M 2,500 M 2,400 M 5,000 M

 With Nonfatal Injury 150 M 600 M 2,400 M 3,000 M

 No Injury 2 M 1,900 M 65 M 2,000 M

Larceny or Attempt 150 M 9,000 M 0 M 9,000 M

Burglary or Attempt 30 M 7,000 M 1,800 M 9,000 M

Motor Vehicle Theft or Attempt 9 M 6,300 M 500 M 7,000 M

Total 18,000 M 87,000 M 345,000 M 450,000M

Note: Totals were computed before rounding. “No injury” cases involve no physical injury but may involve psychological injury. NCVS fatal crimes = all crime deaths

except drunk driving and arson. Personal fraud/attempt is excluded to prevent possible double counting with larceny.
18

cal and wage losses are labeled “annual” costs due to crime,

more precisely, they are the “total discounted present value

of short-term and long-term costs associated with 1 year of

crime.” Thus, they are the total losses imposed by crimes

that occur in a given year—regardless of when the losses

actually occurred.

Overall, rape has the highest annual victim costs at $127

billion per year (excluding child sex abuse), followed by assault at $93 billion, murder (excluding arson and drunk

driving deaths) at $71 billion, drunk driving (including fatalities) at $61 billion, and child abuse at $56 billion. Table

5 shows the annual costs by crime and major cost category.

Excluded crimes. As mentioned earlier, several crime categories were not included in this study. However, other estimates of two common crimes—fraud and drug abuse—are

reported, as is a preliminary estimate of the cost of child

neglect.

Personal fraud. A recent survey of personal fraud victimization estimated the annual tangible costs for fraud to be $45

billion (Titus et al., 1995).

Drug abuse. Although drug abuse might lead to other forms

of crime (either through violence associated with the distribution process or property crimes in support of a drug

habit), these costs are already included in this study’s victim

cost estimates. The cost of illegal drug abuse itself, however,

was not estimated. According to data published by the

Bureau of Justice Statistics (1992), the annual health care

costs for illegal drug users were $5.2 billion in 1985, and

drug treatment costs were an estimated $1.73 billion in

1989. Other costs not included were property losses caused

by drug abuse and lost labor productivity due to drug abuse

of those in (or who would otherwise have been in) the legitimate labor force. One other indicator of the cost of drug

abuse is the value of sales, estimated at $40 billion to $50

billion annually.

Table 6

 Incidence and Annual Losses Due to Adult Domestic Violence (in 1993 dollars)

Incidence Victims Victimizations

Series = 1 Series = r

Fatal Crime, No Arson/DWI 4,001 4,001 4,001

Rape 259,000 259,000 327,000

Other Assault or Attempt 1,960,000 1,960,000 2,287,000

Robbery or Attempt 40,000 40,000 48,000

Total 2,300,000 2,300,000 2,700,000

Annual Losses

Other Quality

Medical Tangible of Life Total

Fatal Crime, No Arson/DWI 85 M 4,000 M 7,700 M 12,000 M

Rape 389 M 400 M 24,000 M 25,000 M

Other Assault or Attempt 1,322 M 2,700 M 26,000 M 30,000 M

Robbery or Attempt 21M 90 M 270 M 380 M

Total 1,800 M 7,000 M 58,000 M 67,000 M

Notes:

(1) All of the incidents and costs reported here are included in tables 1 and 4.

(2) The series = r rape count is tenuous and may be low. It assumes the NCVS average rapes per victim applies to domestic rapes. This does not affect total costs

for rape, however.

(3) Totals were computed before rounding.
19

Child neglect. As mentioned above, although some preliminary estimates of child neglect were made, they were excluded from total crime estimates due to definitional and

consistency concerns. Following the same methodology as for

child abuse, the researchers estimated the cost per child neglect case (shown in table 2) and the aggregate cost of child neglect. The estimated total cost of educational neglect is $3

billion, while the annual cost of other forms of child neglect is

$12 billion. These are very tentative estimates.

Special breakdown of cost estimates:

domestic crime and crimes against

children

Table 6 provides more details on the incidence and cost of

domestic crimes against adults—all of which were also included in the previous tables. Domestic crime against adults

accounts for almost 15 percent of total crime costs—$67

billion per year. Table 7 provides more details about child

abuse (ages 0 through 17). Children under age 18 suffer at

least 4.9 million personal crimes annually. Losses due to

these crimes exceed $164 billion, of which about 40 percent

results from domestic crime.

Who pays the crime bill?

As table 8 shows, insurers pay $45 billion annually due to

crime. That’s $265 per American adult. Government pays

$8 billion annually for restorative and emergency services to

victims, plus perhaps one-fourth of the $11 billion in health

insurance payments.

Crime victims and their families pay the bill for some

crimes, while the public largely pays the bill for others. Taxpayers and insurance purchasers cover almost all the tangible victim costs of arson and drunk driving. They cover $9

billion of the $19 billion in tangible nonservice costs of larceny, burglary, and motor vehicle theft. They cover few of

the tangible expenses of other crimes.

Victims pay about $44 billion of the $57 billion in tangible

nonservice expenses for traditional crimes of violence—

murder, rape, robbery, assault, and abuse and neglect. Employers pay almost $5 billion because of these crimes,

primarily in their health insurance bills. (This estimate excludes sick leave and disability insurance costs other than

workers’ compensation.) Government bears the remaining

costs through lost tax revenues and Medicare and Medicaid

payments.

Crime victim compensation accounts for 38 percent of

homeowners’ insurance payments and 29 percent of auto insurance payments.

Uncertainty of the estimates and

sensitivity analysis

This section explores the uncertainty in the study’s estimates but cannot provide confidence intervals. Since this

study relies on a wide range of disparate sources of data, the

data are not in a format that would support a systematic

study of the confidence interval around the estimates. Although the researchers attempted to be conservative, the estimates have a high degree of uncertainty. Some of the key

problems are discussed below.

Number of victimizations

■ Confidence intervals for NCVS. The NCVS is based on a

complex sampling design. Although this research team does

not have adequate information to be able to compute standard errors for all its derived estimates, the NCVS series=1

victimization estimates can be examined over the 4-year period (for which this study took the average). These standard

errors are relatively small, implying that the NCVS estimates are generally within 5–10 percent of the true population. Although standard errors are low, NCVS estimates are

only as good as the survey design and respondents’ ability to

recall and be truthful. For example, these confidence intervals tell nothing about the true underlying population of

rape victims if women are reluctant to volunteer information

about rape incidents. Moreover, these confidence intervals

apply only to the aggregate victimization count estimates,

not for the various breakouts used in this research. For example, although there is a high degree of confidence about

the number of robbery victims reported in NCVS, there can

be less confidence in the estimated proportion of robbery

victims who were hospitalized for broken bones.

■ Series victimization. Few researchers have used the series victimization counts in the NCVS. This study’s team

carefully analyzed the raw sample data and checked the series victims for outliers and reasonableness. Although a few

of the outliers were obvious miscodings (and thrown out of

the sample for purposes of analysis), this study found that

these observations generally were quite plausible. Ultimately, when presenting national cost estimates in table 5,

the researchers decided to truncate the few remaining possible outliers at 10 victimizations in a 6-month period.
20

Table 7

 Incidence and Annual Losses Due to Personal Crimes Against Children Under Age 18,

by Age Group (in 1993 dollars)

AGES 0–11 AGES 12–17

Incidence Victimizations Victimizations

Series = 1 Series = r Series = 1 Series =r

Fatal, No Arson/DWI/Abuse/Neglect 265 1,991 265 1,991

Child Abuse & Neglect 397,000 487,000+ 482,000 562,000+

 Fatal 1,180 1,180 75 75

 Sexual Abuse 97,000 187,000 88,000 168,000

 Physical Abuse 194,000 194,000+ 161,000 161,000+

 Emotional Abuse 105,000 105,000+ 233,000 233,000+

Rape, Omitting Sex Abuse 250,000 315,000 204,000 257,000

Other Assault or Attempt 289,000 450,000 1,167,000 2,261,000

 With Injury 116,000 139,000 468,000 698,000

 No Injury 173,000 311,000 699,000 1,563,000

Robbery or Attempt Unknown Unknown 219,000 261,000

Drunk Driving 125,000 125,000 224,000 224,000

Arson With Injury 2,000 2,000 1,000 1,000

Total 1,060,000 1,380,000 2,300,000 3,570,000

Annual Losses

Other Other

Medical Tangible Total Medical Tangible Total

Fatal, No Arson/DWI 6 M 250 M 900 M 40 M 2,400 M 7,600 M

Child Abuse & Neglect 1,800 M 2,900 M 32,000 M 1,900 M 2,000 M 28,500 M

 Fatal 25 M 1,100 M 4,200 M 2 M 90 M 290 M

 Sexual Abuse 780 M 400 M 12,000 M 690 M 360 M 11,000 M

 Physical Abuse 670 M 1,100 M 13,000 M 560 M 890 M 11,000 M

 Emotional Abuse 280 M 300 M 2,800 M 620 M 690 M 6,200 M

Rape, Omitting Sex Abuse 1,600 M 890 M 35,000 M 1,300 M 760 M 23,000 M

Other Assault or Attempt 240 M 470 M 5,100 M 1,200 M 2,500 M 20,100 M

 Injury 220 M 420 M 4,500 M 1,079 M 2,290 M 17,000 M

 No Injury 20 M 50 M 600 M 101 M 250 M 3,100 M

Drunk Driving 200 M 860 M 3,400 M 350 M 1,520 M 5,700 M

Robbery or Attempt Unknown Unknown Unknown 110 M 480 M 2,100 M

Arson With Injury 24 M 190 M 900 M 11 M 110 M 400 M

Total 3,800 M 5,500 M 77,300 M 4,900 M 9,800 M 87,000 M

Note: Tables 1 and 4 also include all child victimization. Totals computed before rounding. The drunk driving and arson victimization counts and costs with injury

include associated fatalities.
21

The costs per rape are quite sensitive to choice of weighting

for series victimizations since the quality of life losses for

rape are computed per victim, then allocated across victimizations. As shown in table 4, the cost of a rape victimization

is estimated to be $87,000, while the cost of being a rape

victim is $110,000. The latter figure is probably a more useful estimate, since the quality of life losses (the largest component of rape costs) are estimated from jury awards to

victims (not victimizations). Conversely, because of this

study’s methodology using jury awards for victims, the national quality of life losses due to rape are unaffected by the

decision about how to weight series crimes.

Monetary valuation of intangible losses

■ Quality of life losses for fatal crimes. The largest cost element for all violent crimes is lost quality of life and related

fear, pain, and suffering. It may also be the cost item with

the highest degree of uncertainty. For fatalities, the study

estimated lost quality of life using a $2.7 million value of

saving an anonymous life derived from a synthesis of almost

50 published values (Miller, 1990), adjusted for the difference in expected lifespan of crime victims (by crime type)

versus the average injury fatality. Miller (1990) finds the

standard deviation of the quality of life values across studies

is 30 percent of the mean value for a statistical life. Although one cannot use this information directly to estimate

the standard errors of the composite samples, if one assumes

that each of the 50 studies used to generate the $2.7 million

estimate were actual samples from the population of values,

it would imply a 95 percent confidence interval of + $1.3

million.

Viscusi (1993) reviews the same literature but does not adjust the values for obvious sources of variation (e.g., differences in the discount rates used in calculations). He favors

a larger value of $3 million to $7 million. Using a $5 million

value would raise the estimated quality of life lost due to

fatalities and the estimated total cost of fatal crime by $93

billion (to $184 billion).

Alternatively, one could argue that the typical crime victim

is not the same as the typical individual used to generate the

lost quality of life estimate for fatal injuries. Although estimates are generally based on nationally representative

samples of workers or consumers, it is known that murder

victims are disproportionately young, nonwhite, and in the

lowest income classes (National Research Council, 1993).

They may also be more likely to display high tolerance for

risk taking (which might reduce their implied valuation of

However, since this approach is novel, a sensitivity analysis

on the aggregate national crime victimization costs was conducted. Weighting the data with series victimizations without imposing the maximum of 10 victimizations in 6 months

would raise the estimated tangible crime costs by 7.5 percent, quality of life costs by 12 percent, and total costs by

11 percent. Weighting the data with the most recent victimization in a series counted as the only victimization (i.e., series=1 in table 1) would lower tangible costs by 4 percent,

quality of life costs by 8 percent, and total costs by 7 percent. Thus, aggregate cost estimates are not overly sensitive

to decisions about how to handle series victimizations.

Table 8

Insurance Payments Due to Attempted

and Completed Crimes Against Individuals

(B = billions, in 1993 dollars)

Type of Crime

Murder $1.2 B

Child Sex Abuse 0.6 B

Other Child Abuse 0.8 B

Rape, Omitting Sex Abuse 1.7 B

Other Assault or Attempt 3.3 B

Robbery or Attempt 0.5 B

Drunk Driving 25.1 B

Arson 2.4 B

Larceny or Attempt 2.1 B

Burglary or Attempt 3.5 B

Motor Vehicle Theft or Attempt 3.6 B

Total 45 B

% of

Annual

Type of Insurance Payments Payments

Health $11.0 B 1.8

Life 1.5 B 2.2

Workers’ Compensation 1.0 B 2.2

Auto 23.5 B 28.9

Homeowner’s/Fire/Theft 7.9 B 37.9

Total 45 B 5.4

Note: Drunk driving payments are restricted to crashes with a BAC above 0.1%

and are net of alcohol-involved crashes not attributable to alcohol. U.S.

insurance premiums, loss ratios, and loss adjustment expense ratios from Best’s

Review and Preview and U.S. Statistical Abstract, inflated to 1993 dollars. Auto

includes commercial auto. Fire includes commercial fire. Payments include loss

adjustment expenses. Annual life insurance payments were estimated as 85%

of annual premiums. Excludes $12 billion in medical payments that insurers do

not pay directly but ultimately may absorb due to cost shifting. Excludes longterm disability insurance.
22

future quality of life), as demonstrated by higher rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, drug trafficking, and other forms of

criminal behavior. On the other hand, more than half of all

murders are domestic or involve children; society also might

decide for equity reasons that differences in value of life estimates across individuals should not be used for policy

analysis. Regardless of which lost quality of life value is determined to be appropriate, a sensitivity analysis can be

conducted to determine the effect of varying this parameter.

For example, if one values lost quality of life at the lower

bound of the 95 percent confidence interval (about

$500,000 instead of $1.9 million), the estimated total cost of

fatal crime would fall from $91 billion to $54 billion.

■ Quality of life losses for nonfatal crimes. The nonfatal

quality of life estimates come from regression analysis of

jury verdicts. For nonfatal injuries, the standard error range

around the log-linear regression estimates is +39 percent

for assault and +29 percent for rape. Translating back to

linear estimates of the quality of life yields extremely large

confidence intervals.

As an alternative method of checking this study’s quality of

life estimates, they were compared to a completely different

methodology described in Miller, Pindus et al. (1995). This

alternative method is based on physician ratings of the loss

of functioning that typically results from different injuries

and surveys that reveal how people rate different functional

losses relative to death. These ratings are then applied to

the same $2.7 million statistical value of life used above to

arrive at a monetary equivalent for the nonfatal injury. Using

the values derived from physician judgments would lower

the estimated quality of life losses by just 6 percent. This

close match masks substantial disagreement over the losses

by treatment status, with the jury verdict estimates lower

than the physician judgment estimates for hospitalized cases

and higher for other medically treated cases.

The concern that the fatal victim population might not have

the same risk tolerance or income as the U.S. population as

a whole is not as relevant for nonfatal injuries. This study

used estimates of wage rates directly from NCVS, and there

is less reason to believe that victims who sue for damages

are different from the population of victims in general.

Until there is a larger data base on jury awards or more confidence in alternative methodologies, this is the best this

study is able to do. Based on the size and uncertainty of the

estimates, further research on the lost quality of life due to

crime victimization appears to be a priority.

■ Lifestyle changes due to victimization. The psychological

effects of victimization may result in lifestyle changes such

as moving to a new neighborhood, switching jobs or occupations, buying more protective devices, changing daily routines, and simply enjoying life less. In some instances,

victims may subsequently attempt suicide. Since this study

already estimated pain, suffering, and lost quality of life,

many of these lifestyle effects were incorporated into the estimates. Juries presumably take such effects into account

when awarding damages for pain, suffering, and lost quality

of life; and individuals also take them into account in making decisions on which risk-reducing actions to take.

Of course, it is impossible to know empirically whether or

not juries take all of these costs into account. One sensitivity analysis was conducted to look at the maximum medical

costs associated with suicide attempts precipitated by criminal victimization. The order-of-magnitude of these losses

can be bounded for sexual assaults using excess suicide attempt rates from Golding and George (1993) and Kilpatrick

et al. (1992) and for other child abuse using rates from the

literature review in Daro (1988). With the costs per suicide

and per hospitalization for suicide attempts from Miller,

Pindus et al. (1995), suicide-related medical costs would be

$107 per rape and $165 per child abuse case. Although this

equates to $300 million annually, it is a very small percentage of estimated costs. Because the associations between

crime and suicide are uncertain and these costs might already be implicitly taken into account in this study’s quality

of life costs, they are excluded from the estimates in this

document.

Comparison with prior estimates

Estimates of the cost of crime have a long history, dating

back as early as the 1931 Wickersham Commission. A

review of some of these studies is contained in Gray (1979).

These earlier studies tended to report broad aggregates and

focus on direct costs such as victims’ out-of-pocket costs,

the criminal justice system, the cost of private security,

and the value of illegal wagers. Most of the earlier studies

did not go beyond tangible costs. Beginning with Thaler

(1978), there have been several attempts to include indirect

costs. Thaler (1978) and subsequent studies estimated the

difference in housing prices that can be attributed to differential crime rates, thus inferring homeowners’ willingness to

pay for reduced crime. Although in theory these approaches
23

can yield estimates of the cost of different types of crime,

the data requirements for such a project appear to be too

onerous, and the property value studies to date have only estimated the cost of a generic “index crime” (rape, robbery,

assault, motor vehicle theft, burglary, and larceny). Phillips

and Votey (1981) took a different approach by combining

estimates of the value of a statistical life with crime seriousness rankings from the public surveys of Sellin and

Wolfgang (1964). Their approach was the first that attempted to account for the intangible costs of individual

crimes, but it still was not able to account for many of those

intangible costs.

Cohen (1988) was the first study to explicitly attempt to

place monetary values on pain, suffering, and lost quality of

life to victims of different crimes. Although that study had

numerous data limitations (including using short-term losses

in the absence of long-term data and relying primarily on

NCVS incidence estimates), it used a similar methodology to

that used in this study by combining jury awards and the

statistical value of life to estimate intangible losses. Cohen

(1990) compared these estimates to the earlier property

value studies and found that the two different approaches

yielded very similar estimates of the cost of an “index

crime.” Several followup studies have updated these estimates by adding more comprehensive information, including

Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994); and Miller, Cohen, and

Rossman (1993).

Table 9 compares both the individual crime cost estimates

and the aggregate United States costs estimated here to several earlier studies. For individual crimes, this study has estimated significantly higher costs for rape than previous

studies. For example, the average cost of a rape (including

attempts) is estimated to be $87,000, whereas previous estimates ranged from $55,000 to $70,000. This difference is

primarily due to the fact that jury awards in rape cases were

analyzed to determine estimates of pain, suffering, and lost

quality of life, whereas earlier studies employed even more

indirect methods of estimation (such as jury awards in more

generic cases of emotional distress). Further, earlier studies

did not make clear distinctions between victims and victimizations. They often used victim counts even though they

estimated costs on the basis of victimizations. This study’s

estimate of the cost per rape victim is $110,000.

This study’s estimates are substantially higher than Government estimates published from the NCVS. For example, the

medical, mental health care, public services, and productivity costs are more than 10 times the short-term loss components captured in the NCVS for rape and assault and 5

times the costs captured for robbery. This is primarily because this study’s methodology included long-term medical

and wage costs, mental health care, valuation of lost household and school hours, and the administrative (insurance

and Government) costs of reimbursement for many of these

losses. Nor did the researchers follow the extremely conservative approach of ignoring costs acknowledged to be real

though not directly supplied by NCVS survey respondents.

For example, some NCVS survey respondents reported that

they did incur costs (medical, property loss, etc.) but were

unsure of the dollar amount. Klaus (1994) treats these responses as a zero-cost, whereas this study assigned these

cases the mean cost among similar cases with known costs.

The quality of life and mental health care costs are lower

than in earlier studies. Both the quality of life costs and

mental health care costs in the earlier studies were based on

jury awards for auto crashes and tort cases; but data on jury

awards for pain and suffering in criminal victimization cases

are now available. For mental health care costs, survey data

on victim use from mental health care providers are now

also available.

Aggregate cost estimates have also increased significantly

for some crimes. The largest increase is for rape, since the

cost per incident is higher and this study’s estimate of the

number of rapes has increased tenfold. For example, Cohen,

Miller, and Rossman (1994) estimated the aggregate cost to

be $10 billion (in 1993 dollars), based on 147,000 NCVS

rape victims (excluding series victims) and $68,800 per victim. This figure was subsequently updated to include series

victimizations (with series=1), reported in Miller, Cohen,

and Rossman (1993). The latter estimate resulted in aggregate costs of $16 billion (in 1993 dollars), based on 229,000

rape victims and $68,800 per victim. This study estimates

the aggregate cost of a rape to be $127 billion, based on

1,467,000 victimizations and a cost per victimization of

$87,000.
24

Table 9

Comparison of This Study’s Cost Estimates With Prior Estimates

Philips & Cohen NASa This Klaus

Votey (1981) (1988) (1994) Study (1994)

(a) Total Cost Per Victimization

Rape $55,600 $68,500 $68,800 $87,000 ——

Robbery $10,800b $16,900 $24,400 $13,000 ——

Assault $13,800c $16,100 $21,000 $15,000 ——

MV Theft —— $4,200 —— $4,000 ——

Burglary —— $1,800 —— $1,500 ——

Larceny —— $240 —— $370 ——

(b) Tangible Costs Per Victimization

Rape —— $6,200 $8,000 $5,100 $240

Robbery —— $1,500 $2,400 $2,300 $580

Assault —— $570 $1,100 $1,550 $130

MV Theft —— $4,100 —— $3,500 $4,200

Burglary —— $1,800 —— $1,100 $870

Larceny —— $240 —— $370 $230

Aggregate Estimates of Victim Costs Cohen, Miller,

 (billions, in 1993 dollars) Miller & Cohen &

U.S. News Cohen Rossman Rossman This

(1976) (1988) (1994) (1994)a Study

Fatal Crimesd e $50 $56 $56 $93

Rape e $12 $10 $16 $127

Robbery e $13 $19 $27 $11

Assault e $33 $57 $112 $93

 Subtotal Personal Crimes $27 $108 $142 $211 $324

MV Theft e $5 — — $7

Burglary e $6 — — $9

Larceny e $2 — — $9

Arson e — — $1 $5

Vandalism, Shoplifting, Fraud, Embezzlement e — — — —

 Subtotal Crimes Against Property $63 $13 — $1 $30

Child Physical/Sexual Abuse — — — — $56

Drunk Driving — — — — $41

_____ ____ _____ _____ _____

Total $90 $121 $142 $212 $451

Note: All estimates have been updated to 1993 dollars based on the consumer price index.

(a) Costs per victimization estimates taken from Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994), and are very similar to estimates reported in Miller, Cohen, and

Rossman (1993). Aggregate estimates from the latter source are slightly higher due to adjustments that were made to account for series victimizations.

(b) Assumes weapon used. If no weapon, $3,500.

(c) Assumes hospitalized, otherwise $3,150.

(d) This study includes fatal crimes of drunk driving, child abuse, and arson not included in previous studies.

(e) U.S. News (1976) did not provide crime specific estimates. These crimes are included in totals.
25

No single research project can hope to fill all of the gaps in

our knowledge of the incidence, consequences, and costs of

crime. This research has taken a comprehensive look at both

incidence and victim costs, summarized the best estimates

currently available, and, in some instances, provided new

estimates where major gaps existed. Along the way, this

project identified a host of future research issues. These fall

into three general categories: improving estimated incidence, improving cost estimates, and applying the costs in

benefit-cost and demographic analyses.

Improving incidence estimates. For many Americans,

crime is a secret. Consequently, crime statistics are prone to

undercounting. That is especially true of rape and domestic

violence. Recent surveys show that Americans are increasingly willing to talk about these problems. Partly from a lack

of data, various researchers and organizations have undertaken surveys to estimate the incidence of crimes such as

rape, domestic violence, and child abuse. Unfortunately,

these surveys suffer from lack of consistent definitions and

often are discredited for including incidents that are not

criminal or not deemed criminal in the minds of the victims.

It is particularly difficult to compare various estimates because of methodological differences. For example, one survey might ask for all victimizations that occurred during the

past year, while another asks for the “most serious” that occurred during the past 6 months. Even if they had consistent

victimization definitions, these two surveys would differ due

to response error (e.g., “telescoping” the timeframe so that

an event that happened 7 months ago is included in a study

measuring the crime over a 6-month period). They would

also differ because of victims’ subjective answers to the

“most serious” question. A new version of the NCVS incorporates a more probing approach to these issues and begins

to address this undercounting problem in a systematic way

that can be analyzed over time.

We still know very little about the true extent and consequences of violence, abuse, and neglect of children. This

study’s preliminary estimates of nondomestic assaults

against children under age 12, for example, indicate that

more than 500,000 children under age 12 may be assaulted

or raped annually. Although these estimates are based on

reasonable and conservative assumptions, they are not

based on direct survey or other direct measurement techniques. We know even less about the severity of injury for

these child victims and about social service utilization.

Thus, further research in this area should be a priority.

Improving cost estimates. A particular research priority

seems to be the long-term impact on earnings potential for

victims of domestic violence and child maltreatment. The

frequency of physical injury due to different types of child

maltreatment, as well as recent data on social/victim service

intensity and cost, also is lacking.

The cost estimates for domestic assault and especially for

child abuse and neglect are probably incomplete. They do

not fully capture the effects of these crimes. Repeated victimization can shatter lives, reducing the earning capacity of

victims who lack the self-confidence to pursue educational

opportunities they might have in the absence of the abuse.

Child abuse may also lead to intergenerational violent

abuse. For example, Widom (1992) finds abused and neglected children are 1.38 times as likely as other children to

commit violent acts. Using this number, the study’s estimated rate of child maltreatment would imply that 13 percent of all violence can be linked to earlier child

maltreatment. In theory, the costs of these induced crimes,

including the incarceration costs, could properly be added

to costs of the original crime. Doing so would substantially

raise the costs per maltreated child. In practice, however,

adequate data on the causal connection between child abuse

and subsequent violence is not yet available.

A serious gap in this research effort stemmed from the lack

of nationally representative contextual and demographic

data about murder victims. For example, lack of data about

income levels of murder victims forced this study to use national average earnings by age and sex to estimate earnings

lost to murder. The first fledgling attempt to fill the murder

data gap was the 1986 National Mortality Follow-Back

study. That study covered all deaths. A more focused study

is needed that captures NCVS-like data for murder victims.

This study’s work on mental health care costs is preliminary

in nature and merits followup with a larger sample and more

extensive pretesting. A victim service agency survey should

be coordinated with this survey. Challenges in that related

Future Research
26

survey will be to avoid double counting with the provider

survey, to count volunteer time, and to track compensation

for victimization (which affects who pays rather than the total cost) separately from resource costs.

Most wage losses due to crime result from the occasional injury that causes permanent disability. The NCVS questions

the same respondent in six time periods. Since permanent

disability is rare, the NCVS might collect these rare but important costs for crimes described in prior surveys. NCVS

estimates also probably would improve if respondents reported medical and mental health care costs, rather than

just medical costs (which some respondents may interpret as

including psychiatric care).

This study dealt only peripherally with costs to third-party

victims (e.g., fear of crime among the general population or

crime victims’ families, post-traumatic stress disorders of

emergency service personnel). These costs merit focused

study. This study also barely touched on crime-induced suicide, crime-induced criminality, or AIDS transmission

through rape. These events could potentially be large contributors to victimization costs. Conversely, explicit suicide

costs easily could double count since both pain and suffering and mental health treatment already are incorporated in

this study’s framework.

Lost quality of life is the largest cost component. It also is

the least easily measured. Research should continue on

measurement methods. A National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration project (MacKenzie et al., 1994) has produced new physician estimates of impairment following injury that will improve the willingness-to-pay approach. A

regression analysis of published values of statistical life estimates could better separate out modeling effects, potentially yielding more credible fatal risk reduction values.

In a rapidly growing number of States, cause-coded hospital

discharge data represent a rich source for data on the most

serious injuries resulting from crime. In the States analyzed

for this study, the health care system appeared to capture

data on many more victimizations than the NCVS. These

data lack details about crime context, but that information

might be added by linking them with police crime reports. A

demonstration is needed to assess the value of linked data

and the difficulty/cost of linkage.

Applying the cost estimates. Criminologists and public

policy researchers are beginning to use crime cost estimates

in many new ways to help shed light on the desirability of

various policy options. A next step would be to compute cost

estimates for defined populations—the elderly, youthful offenders, women, low-income people, minorities, and policereported victimizations. Although these breakouts might

prove useful, care must be taken in deriving them from existing data sets. For example, although it might be reasonable to estimate the percentage of victims who are Hispanic

and their age distribution, at some point the sample cells

become too low to make meaningful estimates. It might not

be reasonable to estimate the number of Hispanic females

from the ages of 18 to 24 who suffer from broken bones due

to physical nondomestic assaults, for example.

Costs per police-reported crime are higher than costs of the

average crime. These costs can be derived with this study’s

costing system and data. For analyses of police resource allocation, they would be more appropriate than this study’s

cost estimates. Conversely, the costs here are most appropriate to use in assessing the wisdom of early offender release

and diversion programs.

The recent health care reform debate emphasized proven interventions, ones that had benefits exceeding their costs.

Data on proven violence prevention approaches were notably lacking in the debate. These costs provide a basis for

such analyses.
27

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