U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Estimates of the Cost of Crime in Australia

NCJ Number
177668
Author(s)
John Walker
Date Published
1992
Length
9 pages
Annotation
Available estimates of the cost of crime in Australia were analyzed to determine the costs of crime to the Australian economy; the relative impacts of violent offenses, property offenses, and drug law offenses; and the sharing of costs between the public and private sectors and between individuals and organizations.
Abstract
The research also focused on the costs of the various efforts made by the community to prevent crime and to catch and punish offenders. Total costs of crime are somewhere between $11 billion and $21 billion per year and thus amount to up to 5.6 percent of gross domestic product. The largest component of these costs is the result of white-collar crime. In addition, the cost of the combined private and public effort to prevent and counter crime amounts to around 1.3 percent of gross domestic product. Thus, crime could cost around 7.2 percent of gross domestic product. Table, figure, and 29 references