Author Description

While the formulation of a metric that objectively estimates the costs of criminal behaviour would benefit the act of policy making in many ways, a simple costing analysis is not the be-all in terms of evidence to support decision making. [...] While the UCR2 is police-reported data recording the number of incidents that have come to the attention of police, the GSS is self-reported recording personal experiences of criminal victimization, regardless of whether or not the incident was reported to police. [...] In estimating police costs, the UCR2 survey is used as the main data source as it accurately records the number of incidents of firearm-related crime that have come to the attention of police. [...] The money spent by police is mainly based on the number of incidents that have come to the attention of police, not the number of offences committed. [...] On the other hand, the Adult Criminal Court Survey (ACS) and the Youth Court Survey (YCS) will be used to obtain the information regarding the firearm-related cases processed in the court system and court outcomes.