The Billion Dollar Costs of Troubled Youth: Prospects for Cost-Effective Prevention and Treatment

ABSTRACT

A follow-up study of 227 youth (to mean age 19.5) excluded from school and transferred into special behavioural units found that 63% had criminal convictions after leaving formal schooling, at age 16. Thirty percent had been convicted of “violence against the person”, and 31% had served or were serving prison terms. Twenty six percent had been convicted of 10 or more crimes. The costs (conservatively estimated) of servicing this cohort since the age of 12 (including child care and school exclusion costs) were at the very minimum US$45,472 per individual. Generalising these figures to the national estimates of at least 15,000 youth formally excluded from school in England and Wales, and transferred to special behavioural units, indicates a cost to the public purse of at least US$682 millions by the time these youth are 19.5 years. Lifetime costs are likely to be very much higher, amounting to several billion dollars. It is argued that spending a fraction of this money on preventive and supportive social and educational services in the school years would be highly cost effective. More research into why some individuals do not enter the cycle of criminality is also urgently required.