Reserch Summary

Martin, S. & Colt, S. (2009). "The Cost of Crime: Could the State reduce future crime and save money by expanding education and treatment programs?" Institute of social and economic research, University of Alaska Anchorage.

The main idea of this article is that the Alaskan budget and society could be improved by increased spending on preventative and rehabilitative treatment programs for prisoners and at0risk individuals, including children. The authors list several key observations to support this idea, including a direct cost comparison of the suggested programs and their rates of imprisonment/criminality prevention with the costs of building and maintaining prisons and caring for prisoners in such facilities. Also noted is the high rate of recidivism that many Alaskan inmates fall into after their release, with further economic and social costs to the state and its population. The authors also detail the far greater efficacy of early education and prevention programs in deterring crime when compared to imprisonment.

The main values evident in this article include both a sense of fiscal responsibility and collective ethical responsibility for the long-term health and viability of the state and its social programs of crime prevention and crime reduction as well as correction. Programs that seem to create or perpetuate criminality such as the current Alaskan prison structure and rehabilitative offerings (or lack thereof) are seen as non-corrective and arguably even harmful to the state and its population, whereas spending on early education and prevention programs is both more directly beneficial to individuals and society as well as a better economic proposition for the state. Both direct pragmatism and more subjective ethical values are clearly evident and intertwined in the authors' perspective.

The explicit program suggestions and analyses that the authors deliver in this article cannot be put to extensive direct use by social workers in their provision of services to individual clients. Though the information can be used for policy advocacy, allowing social workers to lend their voices to those clamoring for greater attention to education and early prevention programs, the bulk of the article's information concerns hoped-for and suggested programs that are as of now not implemented, and the information covers many instances in which the social worker's hands would be legally tied in terms of seeking alternatives to imprisonment without the legislative changes suggested in the article. Still, this information can be used in a general way for viewing some common issues encountered by social workers in their practice, including the encouragement of seeking out and joining education and prevention programs for at-risk individuals and families on a voluntary basis and equipping the social worker with a better overall understanding of the current individual and societal needs and constraints of the system.