Publisher's Synopsis
Many state and local governments are facing significant fiscal challenges, forcing policymakers to confront difficult trade-offs as they consider how to allocate scarce resources across numerous worthy initiatives. To achieve their policy priorities, it will become increasingly important for policymakers to concentrate resources on programs that can clearly demonstrate that they improve their constituents' quality of life. To identify such programs, cost/benefit analysis can be a powerful tool for objectively adjudicating the merits of particular programs. On the surface, all such programs aim to improve quality of life, but whether they actually achieve -- or will achieve -- what they aim for is another question. Summarizing the existing high-quality academic research on the cost of crime and the effectiveness of police in preventing crime, this paper familiarizes policymakers and practitioners with current research on these issues and
