Making the Case for Domestic Violence Prevention; What Are Cost Estimates?

Manual: Making the Cost Benefit Case for Domestic Violence Prevention

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Making the Case for Domestic Violence Prevention Through the Lens of Cost-Benefit

A Manual for Domestic Violence Prevention Practitioners
(and the State and Local Policy-Makers They Present to)

What Are Cost Estimates?

cost

cost estimates

cost analysis

cost-benefit

cost-effectiveness

While it is undeniably challenging to measure the costs of domestic violence, we can nevertheless make educated estimates that can help us make the case for programs working toward its prevention. Cost estimates can help to a) demonstrate the impact a problem has on society; b) shape the attitudes of people who develop public policy and allocate limited funds; and c) serve as a baseline for the assessment of the benefit or the effectiveness of a violence prevention program, which may, in turn, lead to resource allocation to specific programs.

How to Cost Domestic Violence

There are three main ways to cost domestic violence:

Surveys that obtain information about prevalence and incidence of domestic violence, often a national random sample survey of violence against women (e.g., Miller et al, 1996);
Data from service providers as to the overall costs of these services;
Information as to how many women access which services how frequently as a consequence of domestic violence. This can be obtained through surveys of victims that ask about service use; requesting information from service providers; and/or case study interviews with victims of domestic violence to ascertain how many times they accessed which services.

The Cost of Domestic Violence by S. Walby,
Women and Equality Unit, London, September 2004, p. 21.

Domestic violence is often a repeat offense… a pattern of coercive control, and incidents may have a cumulative effect beyond that of individual incidents. Nevertheless, each incident is of consequence. Some of the ways in which costs are identified focus on the number of victims, while others focus on the number of incidents. The prevalence rate is concerned with the percentage of people who have suffered domestic violence, while incidence concerns the number of incidents. This means that the number of incidents will be greater than the number of victims.

The Cost of Domestic Violence by S. Walby,
Women and Equality Unit, London, September 2004, p. 27.

For example, it has been estimated that the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA-I) saved $12.6 billion in net averted social costs (see box below). These costs are cost estimates.

In response to public concern about violence against women in the United States, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA-I), which provided $1.6 billion for programs over five years. A cost-benefit analysis estimated the net benefit, using a societal perspective, of VAWA-I in reducing violent criminal victimization of women. Costs included direct property losses, medical and mental health care, police response, victim services, lost productivity, reduced quality of life, and death. Benefits were calculated as averted costs. This analysis found that VAWA-I saved $12.6 billion in net averted social costs, suggesting that VAWA-I is an affordable and beneficial social program. On the individual level, VAWA-I is estimated to cost $15.50 per U.S. woman and would be expected to save $123 per U.S. woman in averted costs of criminal victimization. This suggests that VAWA-I is a fiscally efficient social program.

**Tangible and Non-tangible Costs by Type/Category of Criminal Victimization**
Description	Fatal Crime	Rape and Sexual Assault	Nonfatal Assault
Tangible costs per U.S. woman (in 1998 $)
*Productivity	$1,128,809	2,483	3,499
*Medical Care	19,615	602	1,769
*Mental Health Care	5,776	2,647	117
*Police/Fire Services	1,467	42	95
*Social/Victim Services	0	30	52
*Property Loss/Damage	135	113	44
Non-tangible costs per U.S. woman (in 1998 $)
*Quality of life	$2,156,025	91,885	21,786
Total costs per U.S. woman (in 1998 $)
	$3,311,828	97,803	27,362

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994,
See Author's Erratum - Appendix H
Clark, K. et al, Violence Against Women,
Vol. 8, No. 4, Sage Publications, 2002.

Using a prevalence-based approach, Laurence and Spalter-Roth (1996) outline a formula for determining the annual aggregate costs of domestic violence. For an explanation of this formula, please see: Economic Costs of Domestic Violence by L. Laing and N. Bobic, Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse UNSW, pp. 36-37.
http://www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au/PDF%20files/Economic_costs_of_DV.pdf.