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Costs of crime

The AIC estimates that crime costs Australia nearly $36 billion a year – some 4.1 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Forty per cent of this is the result of fraud, which costs some $8.5 billion, and which has increased significantly in recent years. Burglary is next at 10 per cent, followed by drug offences (9 per cent), arson (8 per cent) and assault (7 per cent). The Productivity Commission recently found that justice services in 2009 alone cost Australian governments more than $10.7 billion, with police services accounting for some 66.7 per cent, followed by corrective services (22.7 per cent), criminal court administration (5.7 per cent) and civil court administration (4.9 per cent). The AIC has compiled a full breakdown of the costs of crime which is available on this website.

• The costs of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug abuse to Australian society in 2004/05 : summary report (PDF 389kB)
  David J Collins and Helen M Lapsley, National Drug Strategy, 2008
• Manual for estimating the economic cost of injuries due to interpersonal and self-directed violence
  Alexander Butchart ... [et al.], World Health Organization. 2008
• Mainstreaming Methodology for Estimating Costs of Crime