The Cost of Pain Suffering from Crime in Canada

Foreword

I am pleased to introduce The Cost of Pain and Suffering from Crime in Canada. In this report, Dr. Ambrose Leung presents the findings of his research to assess the extent of crime induced pain and suffering in monetary terms. While it is impossible to put an accurate price on the emotional and psychological sufferings caused by crimes, it is essential that the effort is made to estimate its cost. Not only will such attempts further the understanding of the impact of crime on society, it will also support evidence-based criminal justice policy developments by making effective cost-benefit analysis possible.

Despite the fact that it is extremely difficult and problematic to quantify the intangibles, the research adopts an innovative approach to estimate the cost of pain and suffering from crime in Canada, both overall and for specific categories of crime, namely violent crimes, property crimes and other crimes such as drug offences and Criminal Code traffic offences. The estimation is based on three components: the number of incidents for each type of crime, the proportion of victims feeling worried about safety, and the value of perceived and actual mental distress as a result of the crime experience.

Using both the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the General Social Survey (GSS) on victimization as data sources, it is established that the cost of pain and suffering from all crimes was $35.83 billion using the GSS data, compared to $9.83 billion using police-reported statistics.

I would like to acknowledge the contribution made by Dr. Kuan Li, Research Analyst, in carrying out this project from conception to final product. We would welcome any feedback on the Research and Statistics Division Methodological Series.

Stan Lipinski
Director, Research and Statistics Division
Department of Justice Canada