Is Delinquency Prevention a Cost-Effective Strategy? A California Perspective

Abstract

To be cost-effective, delinquency prevention should yield savings to the law enforcement and juvenile justice system and, optionally, to victims, offsetting more than its costs. An analysis of the cost issues involved from the standpoint of local and state budgeting indicates that the benefit-cost position of prevention programs depends upon the delinquency risk of the clients chosen for treatment, and the success rate in preventing subsequent delinquency by those clients as well as the relative costs of the program itself. A simple model for the interplay of these various factors is developed and illustrated using data from the Los Angeles County delinquency prevention program. Even with conservative assumptions, delinquency prevention appears to be a cost-effective strategy, capable of producing savings to local and state government that outweigh its costs. Achieving that favorable benefit-cost position, however, is not assured for any given program. It requires selection of juvenile clients with significant delinquency risk, sustaining of a moderately high level of success in treating those clients, and containment of program costs. Representative data from the Los Angeles County program are used to estimate the performance required on these various factors if a prevention program is to justify its effort in terms of net cost savings to those responsible for funding juvenile justice in the community within which it operates.