The estimates in this section are updates of estimates provided by Harwood et al. About 2.5 percent of FAS victims are severely mentally retarded, and labor force participation among even the mildly developmentally disabled is lower than among nondisabled persons. The value of these productivity losses has been calculated using the methodology and basic approach developed in Cruze et al. These values represent losses of potential productivity to the economy. For each type of crime, the calculation multiplies the number of offenses in 1992 by the average number of work-loss days.
Prisoners also represent a loss of potential productivity to society, since few prisoners can work.
Moreover, there is some question about the nature and value of such losses. However, it is arguable that even if they were not incarcerated, many of these individuals might still have had poor success in the legitimate labor market. This is very possibly related to their problems with alcohol and drug abuse. This rationale is not adopted in the current study. The calculations are based on the assumption that in the absence of drug and alcohol abuse, prisoners' potential productivity would be equal to the productivity of the general population.