ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the importance for policy on crime reduction to take account of possible long-term as well as immediate cost-savings; early intervention projects may not show definite cost savings or benefits for 15 years or more. An effect diversion from custody or delaying of the first custodial sentence was identified for 12 young people; this estimate is close to that arrived at in through the two-year analysis of the use of custody for the Freagarrach group and the comparison group. Although the exercise inevitably entails some speculation, it is possible to estimate, as did for CueTen, the longer-term savings Freagarrach may have produced by diverting young people from criminal careers. The approach taken in this chapter to the analysis of the project's costs and savings has been cautious, in that it has mainly focused only on the most direct costs of crimes, those that are reflected in the work of the Children's Hearing and criminal justice systems.
