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Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank for Criminal Justice

  • Christian Henrichson - Director, Vera Insights
    Christian Henrichson
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Featured

Cost-Benefit Analysis and Justice Policy Toolkit

Throughout the justice field, demand is growing for cost-benefit analysis (CBA), an economic tool that compares the costs of programs or policies with the benefits they produce. Although there is no one-size-fits-all template for conducting a CBA, analysts and researchers must follow a common methodology, or series of steps. This toolkit guides use ...

Publication
  • Christian Henrichson, Joshua Rinaldi
December 23, 2014
Publication

A Guide to Calculating Justice-System Marginal Costs

The costs and benefits of criminal justice policies and activities affect everyone. Understanding what goes into the costs of operating jails, prisons, probation and parole, courts, law enforcement agencies, treatment programs, and other segments of the criminal justice system is important for taxpayers, politicians, practitioners, and society as a ...

Publication
  • Christian Henrichson, Sarah Galgano
May 02, 2013
Publication

Advancing the Quality of Cost-Benefit Analysis for Justice Programs

The Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank for Criminal Justice(CBKB), a project of Vera’s Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit, convened a working group of researchers and policymakers to help advance the use of rigorous cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in decisions about criminal justice programs and policies. Input from the working group helped shape this white paper, wh ...

Publication
  • Carl Matthies
March 05, 2014
Publication

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Cost-Benefit Analysis and Public Safety Technology

A Roundtable Discussion

Public safety agencies face continuing budget pressure and need to get the greatest return from their scarce resources. New public safety technologies (PSTs) have the potential to make law enforcement more effective, whether it is an automated reporting system, protective gear for officers, a crime analysis program, or body cameras to record intera ...

Publication
  • Jules Verdone, Carl Matthies
October 01, 2014
Publication

New paper answers the question: “Is cost-benefit analysis baloney?”

A few years ago, a colleague asked me a pointed question about cost-benefit analysis: "Is it useful or a bunch of baloney?" (Actually, her words were a bit saltier.) We had worked together at the New York City Office of Management and Budget—and budget offices incubate a healthy dose of skepticism. Analysts often hear claims that a dollar spent tod ...

Blog Post
  • Christian Henrichson
    Christian Henrichson
May 14, 2014
Blog Post

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Justice Programs

Seeing the Forest and the Trees

Vera’s Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank for Criminal Justice (CBKB) project has two main audiences for its work. One is a technical audience, including legislative, policy, budget and fiscal analysts, researchers, evaluators, criminologists, and others in similar or related professions. For these readers, the forest is important, but the trees are more ...

Blog Post
  • Jules Verdone
    Jules Verdone
April 29, 2014
Blog Post

Using Cost-Benefit Analysis for Justice Policymaking

The Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank for Criminal Justice(CBKB), a project of Vera’s Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit, convened a working group of researchers and policymakers to help advance the use of rigorous cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in decisions about criminal justice programs and policies. Input from the working group helped shape this white paper, wh ...

Publication
  • Christian Henrichson
April 10, 2014
Publication

Putting a Value on Crime Analysts

Considerations for Law Enforcement Executives

Like other government agencies, police departments are under great pressure to get the biggest return possible when investing taxpayers’ dollars in justice programs and policies. The Law Enforcement Forecasting Group of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance asked Vera to develop a resource to help police departments address ...

Publication
  • Carl Matthies, Tina Chiu
March 27, 2014
Publication

The costs and benefits of incarcerating low-level drug offenders

This post originally appeared on the blog of the Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank for Criminal Justice (CBKB), a Vera project. When U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. spoke to the American Bar Association recently about a range of criminal justice issues, it was his announcement of a change in policies for charging low-level drug offenders that ma ...

Blog Post
  • Christian Henrichson
    Christian Henrichson
September 05, 2013
Blog Post

Cost-benefit analysis

Building the will and the way

The title of a new publication from Vera’s Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank for Criminal Justice (CBKB) is admittedly a mouthful: Building Cost-Benefit Analysis Capacity in Criminal Justice: Notes from a Roundtable Discussion. It also includes a dreaded word: capacity. “Capacity” is described as a vague, quasi-occult term in its entry in the Communicati ...

Blog Post
  • Tina Chiu
    Tina Chiu
April 26, 2013
Blog Post

Building Cost-Benefit Analysis Capacity in Criminal Justice

Notes from a Roundtable Discussion

As state and local budgets have become increasingly strained in recent years, interest in using cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in criminal justice policymaking and planning has grown. Although reliable information on costs and benefits can help guide budget officials, policymakers, and legislators, most jurisdictions have not been able to create a sus ...

Publication
  • Tina Chiu
April 26, 2013
Publication

An Introduction to Cost-Benefit Analysis and Justice Policy for State Legislators

Watch Washington State Senator Karen Fraser and Tina Chiu of the Vera Institute of Justice lead a discussion that will help legislators, legislative staff, and other policymakers learn about using cost-benefit analysis for criminal justice policy.

Video
February 08, 2013
Video

Estimating Marginal Costs For Cost-Benefit Analysis in Criminal Justice

What You Need to Know

Christian Henrichson, senior policy analyst at the Vera Institute of Justice and Valerie Levshin, a former Vera policy analyst, provide a practical training on how to estimate marginal costs and collect data from justice agencies. Marginal costs differ in important ways from average costs and more accurately measure the economic impact of initiativ ...

Video
January 10, 2013
Video

Sensitivity Analysis for Cost-Benefit Studies of Justice Policies: A Primer

Watch Ben Bryant, an economist with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and Carl Matthies, a senior policy analyst at the Vera Institute of Justice, for a webinar about sensitivity analysis. This webinar is a fairly technical presentation that requires undergraduate-level knowledge of microeconomics, statistics, and probability. Viewers will gain ...

Video
January 04, 2013
Video

Demystifying Victim Costs

Tina Sanford, director of the New York State Office of Victim Services, Kathryn McCollister, assistant professor and health economist at the University of Miami School of Medicine, and Valerie Levshin, former policy analyst at the Vera Institute of Justice, provide an overview of victim costs, the methods used to estimate them, and how to use victi ...

Video
January 04, 2013
Video
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In the News

Vera Launches Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank for Criminal Justice Website

Vera Press Release April 08, 2011

Vera announces creation of cost-benefit "knowledge bank": new national resource for cost-effective criminal justice planning

Vera Press Release October 16, 2009
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