Costs and Consequences of Victimization

Crimes--both violent and nonviolent--impose many different kinds of losses on both victims and society. The costs and consequences of crime are categorized in the section "Comprehensive List of Costs and Consequences of Crime." This study focuses on victims' costs; hence it ignores society's response to victimization--including the very real costs to the criminal justice system and other social costs associated with the fear of crime, such as changed behavior (failure to walk outside at night, moving to safer neighborhoods, etc.) and private security expenditures by the general population who are concerned about crime. More details about the nonvictim costs of crime are contained in Cohen, Miller, and Rossman (1994) and Cunningham, Strauchs, and Van Meter (1991). To victims, the costs are mainly (1) out-of-pocket expenses such as medical bills and property losses, (2) reduced productivity at work, home, and school, and (3) nonmonetary losses--such as fear, pain, suffering, and lost quality of life. Although some of these losses are tangible and easily quantified, even the intangible losses (such as lost quality of life) may be valued in dollar terms (Cohen, 1988).

Table 2 contains a detaled estime of each category of victimization cost on a per-crime basis. These costs are