ABSTRACT
Studies of the economic value of early-prevention programs fall into two broad categories. One compares the effectiveness of early prevention and incarceration in preventing crime. The second category addresses a conceptually distinct question: Do the benefits of early-prevention programs exceed their costs? Studies using these alternative analytic strategies for performing economic analysis of early prevention are reviewed and critiqued. Economic analysis of developmental prevention programs is itself in a nascent Stage of development. The main criticism of the cost-effectiveness analysis strategy is the difficulty of mounting a convincing argument that early prevention is a cost effective alternative to imprisonment for averting crime. To date the only broad-based cost-benefit analysis of developmental prevention is of the Perry program, so the critique focuses on this analysis. The critique of the Perry cost-benefit analysis focuses on the benefit side of the ledger. The argument that developmental prevention is a cost-effective alternative to criminal sanctions for averting crime is attractive.
