Criminal Justice: Cost Analysis and Justice Achievement

This essay examines the concept of justice, defining it through biblical references and within the framework of the criminal justice system. It explores whether justice is achievable, considering philosophical viewpoints and practical applications like contract enforcement and indemnification. The essay further delves into cost-benefit analysis in criminal justice research, discussing its limitations and the challenges in accurately estimating the costs of crime, including tangible and intangible factors. The author references the Department of Justice's spending on criminal justice and highlights the difficulties in obtaining comprehensive data, particularly for white-collar and cybercrimes, concluding with a discussion on the varying estimations of the annual costs of crime in the United States.

Running head: CRIMINAL JUSTICE
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Name of Student
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Author Note

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Abstract
In this paper a brief research has been done on justice. The term has been defined as per
the biblical references as well as under the criminal justice system. The paper also discusses if
justice has been achieved. In furtherance the cost based analysis of the cost of crime has also
been discussed in the paper.

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What is Justice
The term ‘justice’, according to the Bible, means ‘to make right’. Justice can be described
as the relational term where the people live in the right relationship with God, with one another
and with the creations of the nature (Coomber, 2016).
“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, and please
the widow's cause,” (Isaiah 1:17).
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice,
and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).
“Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24)
Justice as per the criminal justice system can be described as delivering of punishment to
the people committing criminal offences (Cole, Smith & DeJong, 2018). Criminal justice system
in the United States is described as the series of government based institutes and agencies whose
main goals are the identification and detaining of individuals committing unlawful offences and
inflicting punishments on them. Other goals of criminal justice are seen to be including
prevention of crime, rehabilitation of the offenders and providing moral support for the victims
(Pound, 2018).
Is Justice achieved
Justice can be seen as both the attainment of just and the philosophical discussion of just
(Adams & Bell, 2016). As per the words of Bertrand de Jouvenel in his 1954 paper “De la

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Justice” it was stated that if conceived of as a permanently maintained and established
coincidence of abstract vision and social organization, it would be impossible for achieving the
reign of justice would be impossible for achieving. It would only be possible for achieving if the
spirit of justice could be presiding over each of the decisions that are implied for sharing. Thus
from the statement it can be observed that justice as a value would never be met in a complete
way. However justice as a day-to-day problem can be achieved by ways of enforcing of contracts
or by indemnification of the people that have been wronged.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
A cost-benefit analysis can be described as the approach for estimating the weaknesses
and the strengths of the alternatives for the determination of options providing best approaches
for the achievement of benefits while preserving the savings in a systematic way (Nagin 2015).
Cost benefit analysis can commonly be seen to be used in the research of criminal justice;
however the results are very rarely embraced with confidence. The method of the Cost benefit
analysis that has routinely been applied to the research of the crime cannot be said as a well-
developed empirical method. It can rather be described as an extension of the economic theory of
intuitive nature that is being appended on an evolutional impact. In the Cost benefit analysis even
the small errors that have been the result of common problems due to evaluation, such as
selection effects and small sample sizes, would be seen in a magnified way. Even the rare events
having larger amount of costs or benefits could be seen to be obscuring the effects of all the other
programs.
Murder, burglary, theft and all the other crimes can be seen to be having costs for the
victims and the society. As per the reports of the Department of Justice in the year 2012 it was

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seen that the state, federal and the local government had spent more than $280 billion on
criminal justice that is seen to be including police protection, the court system, and prisons.
There are, however, various other costs that have been considered bythe researchers for the
estimation of the total crimes costs in the United States of America. These costs can be seen to
be including the tangible costs like replacement of the damaged properties and certain intangible
costs such as the pains and sufferings of the victim.
No commonly used method for the estimation of the cost of crime can be found.
Estimations have been made by various researchers about the varying annual costs of crime in
the United States that can be ranging from $690 billion to around approximately $3.41 trillion.
The most important reason as to why an accurate estimation of the cost of crime is challenging
for developing is that there is difficulty for the determination of the intangible costs of the crime.
Another reason for the difficulty of the estimation is the difficulty in acquiring information of
how much crime has occurred. As example it can be seen that the information that has been
collected on white-collar crimes and crimes related to cyber offences are much less completed
than the information that had been provided on the property crimes or physical violence crimes.

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Reference
Adams, M., & Bell, L. A. (Eds.). (2016). Teaching for diversity and social justice. Routledge.
Cole, G. F., Smith, C. E., & DeJong, C. (2018). The American system of criminal justice.
Cengage Learning.
Coomber, M. J. (2016). Bible and justice: ancient texts, modern challenges. Routledge.
Nagin, D. S. (2015). Cost-Benefit Analysis of Crime Prevention Policies.
Pound, R. (2018). Criminal justice in America. Routledge.

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