There is theoretical and empirical support for co-offending being important not only for understanding current offending but also subsequent offending. The fundamental question is--why? In this article, an aggregate analysis is performed that begins to answer this question. Disaggregating solo- and co-offending by single year of age (12-29 years) and crime type in a largely metropolitan data set from British Columbia, Canada, 2002 to 2006, it is shown that the distribution of co-offences is significantly more varied than the distribution of solo offences. This more varied distribution of co-offences favors property crimes during youth but fades as offenders age.
A supervised injection facility (SIF) has been established in North America: Insite, in Vancouver, British Columbia. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis of this SIF using secondary data gathered and analysed in 2008. In using these data we seek to determine whether the facility's prevention of infections and deaths among injecting drug users (IDUs) is of greater or lesser economic cost than the cost involved in providing this service - Insite - to this community.
Mathematical modelling is used to estimate the number of new HIV infections and deaths prevented each year. We use the number of these new HIV infections and deaths prevented, in conjunction with estimated lifetime public health care costs of a new HIV infection, and the value of a life, in order to calculate an identifiable portion of the societal benefits of Insite. The annual costs of operating the SIF are used to measure the social costs of Insite. In using this information, we calculate cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost ratios for the SIF.
Through the use of conservative estimates, Vancouver's SIF, Insite, on average, prevents 35 new cases of HIV and almost 3 deaths each year. This provides a societal benefit in excess of $6 million per year after the programme costs are taken into account, translating into an average benefit-cost ratio of 5.12:1.
Vancouver's SIF appears to be an effective and efficient use of public health care resources, based on a modelling study of only two specific and measurable benefits-HIV infection and overdose death.
Notes
Comment In: Int J Drug Policy. 2011 May;22(3):179-8321450450
The relationship between immigration and crime is politically charged and often fueled by the presence (or lack) of xenophobia. Many theoretical and empirical assessments of this relationship indicate that immigration does indeed lead to increased crime, but more recent (and very early) research investigating homicide calls this finding into question. The current analysis investigates the relationship between immigration and homicide using multiple measures of migration and Canadian provinces as the unit of analysis. It is found that the link between immigration and homicide is complex and dependent on the measure of migration used. Generally speaking, the results presented here are consistent with the more recent and very early research. Immigration, in and of itself, does not increase homicide. Rather it is the increase in the most criminogenic subpopulation that matters, that is young males.
