ABSTRACT
This chapter describes key variables that we propose warrant consideration in a portfolio of benefit-cost ratio outcome measures. Cost-benefit analysis is a technique used in most areas of public policy research including health, economics and engineering. Cost-benefit analysis has been used in other areas of criminal justice. Increasing the amount of information available for decision-making is, after all, the aim of cost-benefit analysis. The portfolio discussed here, as with the case study that follows, is anchored primarily in the specific field of crime reduction. In the present study, the impact evaluation issues discussed are displacement, diffusion, anticipatory benefits, the confidence intervals around the impact size and the number of years over which crime prevention returns are estimated. While this is clearly within the realms of traditional sensitivity analysis within cost-benefit analysis, the specific instance of the costs of crime is particularly relevant to crime reduction and criminal justice evaluations.
