5. Estimating the costs of the criminal justice system

Globally, there is ample evidence and research on the importance of estimating the costs of crime to society.

It is of particular interest to assess the economic costs of illicit drug control policy to criminal justice systems. The cost estimation is effected in order to shed light on the domestic distribution of resources for drug control i.e. to understand how a country apportions the different budget quotas dedicated to drug control in the criminal justice chain, i.e. policing, justice and prison.

We use the same estimation method developed in the ALICE RAP project in 2015 and estimate costs for 4 countries in 2010 and 2018. Also, the Sources of the data to be used are the same, but Italy is added to the countries analysed in ALICE RAP also because in 2010 and 2018 has two different laws in force. The countries considered are Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain which show both differences and commonalities in terms of geographic location, economic development, and criminal justice system organization in relation to drug control.

Italy has the highest overall cost of drug control for the criminal justice system, followed by Spain, Poland and Portugal spends significantly less than the other three countries. Details will be shown with tables and graphs.

It would be important to make cost estimates for other countries and for multiple years to follow the evolution of the impact of drug policies on the extent of drug supply and the cost on society and evaluate the possible changes.