PREFACE

In its work programme for 2003-2004, the European Crime Prevention Network (EUCPN) set the task of developing "insight into the costs and benefits of preventing crime in order to promote cost-effective approaches to crime prevention at European level". This volume consists of papers, presentations, and workshop reports from a seminar that attempted to be a step in fulfilling that task.

The seminar was held in Helsinki, Finland, on 1-2 April, 2004, under a fairly long name: “European Seminar on the Costs and Distribution of Costs of Crime and Disorder and Crime Prevention”. It was organised by the Finnish National Council for Crime Prevention in co-operation with the European Forum for Urban Safety and the Swedish Council for Crime Prevention (BRÅ). Monetary support from the AGIS programme of the European Commission made the seminar possible.

There were about 45 participants at the seminar. They came from 17 European countries — both EU member states and (then) soon-to-be member states — as well as two North American countries. The participants were an interesting mix of people with different backgrounds and positions. There were experts in the fields of crime prevention and social cost assessment as well as decisionmakers in criminal policy and municipal governments. This made for lively discussions and exchange of ideas.

The material published in this volume includes most of the plenary presentations, reports on some of the workshops as well as a few presentations from the workshops.

>> Presentations and workshops

As Timo Kvist, the chair of Finland’s National Council for Crime Prevention, mentions in his welcome address, the organisers sent out a survey on cost of crime to the national representatives of the EUCPN. With little success, it turned out. This may be taken as a sign of at least that systematic costing of crime and crime prevention is not a widely spread practice. However, as the Finnish Minister of Justice, Johannes Koskinen, says in his opening speech, the demands of cost-effectiveness are becoming stronger also in the fields of criminal justice and crime prevention.

There were some presentations on the cost of crime in different countries. One was a workshop presentation by Professor Katona on Hungary, another a plenary presentation by Aarne Kinnunen on Finland. There were also glimpses of a work in process that promises to produce a more realistic review of the state of the art of costing crime and crime prevention in Europe than the one that was attempted for the seminar. At the initiative of EUCPN, the European Commission has commissioned a survey on the current situation in the field of crime costing, and two researchers working on this project, Paul van Soomeren and Jack Wever, presented their approach and preliminary results at the seminar. To learn how the project proceeds in the near future, one can keep an eye on the web site of their organisation (link).

Many of the longer plenary presentations are published here as slide shows, not as fully written papers. However, many of them are based on extensive published work, which can be consulted to get a better understanding of the ideas and findings presented in the slides.

Professor Mark Cohen gave a compact outline of the varying methods of costing crime and assessing cost-benefits. A somewhat earlier publication covering some of the same terrain is his book chapter on "Measuring the Costs and Benefits of Crime and Justice" that can be found at the US National Institute of Justice web site (link). He has also written extensively on many aspects of these problems, and those interested in his work are advised to take a look at a list of some of his publications (link).

Pat Mayhew’s presentation drew, among other things, upon her study of the cost of crime in Australia. Links to the original reports can be found (here). She also touched upon a study of the economic and social cost of crime in England and Wales by Sam Brand and Richard Price, which can be found at the Home Office web site (link). Richard Dubourg and Jamie Thorns’s presentation in this volume compares the methods and results of the Brand and Price study with some other cost studies and discusses some conceptual and methodological refinements needed for making the studies more comprehensive and more sensitive.

One of the themes of the seminar was the distribution of costs of crime between the state and the local government. A plenary session and a workshop discussing this were chaired by Elizabeth Johnston of the European Forum for Urban Safety. In the workshop, there were brief presentations on the cost of crime in the cities of Angers (France), and Helsinki (Finland). (Unfortunately, we are unable to publish detailed reports of all the workshops. However, two workshop reports are published here, and they give some idea of the material presented and ideas discussed.
We may also add more reports if they become available.)

In the plenary session, Markku Heiskanen presented a study he conducted with Minna Piispa on the cost of violence against women in a Finnish city. Their related earlier work is available at the www.victimology.nl web site (link). (See, for instance, their study on the national cost of violence against women (link).

Daniel Sansfaçon is a criminologist and Deputy Director of the Montreal-based International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC). His presentation, which is rendered both as a full paper and slide show, discusses the uses of cost and cost-benefit analyses. Some of his earlier work on the area is available at the ICPC website (link).

The lessons of the seminar are summarised by Hannu Takala, Executive Secretary of the main organiser of the event.

Jukka-Pekka Takala
Substitute for EUCPN Network National Representative for Finland
National Council for Crime Prevention, Finland