Costs and Benefits of Agricultural Crime Prevention: A Primer for Estimating the Costs and Benefits of the Agricultural Crime Technology Information and Operations Network (ACTION)

摘要

Offenders and potential offenders modify their criminal behavior in response both to changes in their risk of detection and capture and to the expected severity of punishment. Crime prevention programs seek to reduce crime either by reducing the benefits from offending or by increasing the costs of offending by raising the likelihood of detection. The Agricultural Crime Technology Information and Operations Network (ACTION) is a crime prevention initiative that applies both strategies through intensive policing and prosecution, surveillance equipment, information dissemination, and marking of equipment, supplies, and livestock to reduce agricultural crime in California's Central Valley. The key question for policymakers interested in crime prevention initiatives such as ACTION is whether the costs of the program are offset by the gains (benefits) from any crime reductions that result. Crime in the agricultural sector is significant, totaling an estimated five billion in annual losses. Agricultural crimes include theft of livestock, crops, equipment, chemicals, and pesticides, as well as vandalism and other forms of property crime. Costs of crime are passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices or are absorbed by farmers in the form of lower profits. Despite the magnitude of crime in this sector, agricultural crime has received very little attention from criminologists and criminal justice policymakers.