Avaliação econômica de programas de prevenção e controle da criminalidade no Brasil

Abstract

This paper provides the first estimates of the cost-effectiveness of crime prevention and control programs in Brazil. Although the analysis is not comprehensive or definitive, it is the first attempt to estimate the cost-effectiveness of such initiatives in a developing country. The paper adapts an evaluation methodology developed by Greenwood and others (1998) to estimate the costs effectiveness of crime and violence prevention interventions. Nine crime prevention and control programs are evaluated; these programs are being implemented in the cities of Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. These interventions were chosen based on three criteria: availability of cost information, similarity to programs already evaluated in the international literature, and need to cover the three types of prevention interventions: primary, secondary, and tertiary. The estimates show that general, the prevention programs are more cost-effective than the control program considered. The secondary prevention programs spend the least resources per serious crime avoided.criminality; economic evaluation; crime prevention