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Juvenile Offender Treatment Programs and Cost-Benefit Analysis

NCJ Number
128417
Journal
Juvenile and Family Court Journal Volume: 42 Issue: 1 Dated: (1990) Pages: 37-47
Author(s)
A R Roberts; M J Camasso
Date Published
1990
Length
11 pages
Annotation
After discussing methods and considerations in cost-benefit analysis of human service programs, this article describes cost-benefit analyses of two juvenile treatment programs: family treatment and a wilderness experience.
Abstract
Generally, in human service and correctional programs, a desired benefit is measurable as the estimated reduction in social costs of deviant behavior due to a specific activity or program. A monetary benefit from a family treatment program, for example, is the difference between the social cost of subsequent juvenile offenses by youths or their siblings who have completed the program and the criminal justice and welfare costs of repeat offenses by persons with similar legal histories who did not complete the program at issue. Because total social, criminal justice, and victim costs are difficult to estimate, this article recommends that a cost-benefit analysis begin by estimating the benefit from reducing criminal justice costs and the expense of investigating, arresting, booking, detaining, processing through the courts, and incarcerating or supervising in the community persons who persist in offending. Reductions in subsequent arrests and confinement are usually the most convenient benefits to measure as well as being some of the largest monetary benefits. 3 tables and 29 references

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