Massachusetts Safe and Successful Youth Initiative: Benefit-to-Cost Analysis of Springfield and Boston Sites
This benefit-to-cost analysis was conducted as a preliminary investigation into the value of the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative (SSYI) implemented in Massachusetts as an effort to curb violent crime in eleven cities across the state.
The authors investigated three objectives:
- To estimate the site-specific costs to society of implementing the SSYI interventions in Boston and Springfield, from January 2012 through December 2013
- To estimate the potential economic benefits of the crime victimization reductions documented by applying reliable estimates of the economic losses incurred when violent crimes are committed
- To estimate the average annual ratio of society’s benefit-to-cost ratios, after all amounts have been adjusted to 2013 values
Key Findings
- Examination of the Boston and Springfield SSYI programs suggests that each dollar invested in these SSYI sites may be associated with societal cost-savings of as much as $7.35, in 2013 dollars.
- A dollar invested in Boston’s SSYI program could be expected to gain a savings of nearly $7.40 in crime-related cost savings.
- In Springfield, the data suggests that 1 dollar in investment in the SSYI program would be associated with a likely cost-savings of just over $6.95.
