The Vera Institute of Justice has released a publication titled Cost-Benefit Analysis and Justice Policy Toolkit. The purpose of the toolkit is to guide justice analysts new to Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) through its foundational steps. It addresses the core issues Vera explored with their technical assistance (TA) partner agencies, as well as topics covered on the project website cbkb.org and in other Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank (CBKB) publications. The six steps the toolkit examines are:
Step 1: Identify the investment’s potential impacts
Step 2: Quantify the investment’s impacts
Step 3: Determine marginal costs
Step 4: Calculate costs, benefits, and net present value
Step 5: Test the assumptions
Step 6: Report the results
Justice analysts are increasingly called upon to produce CBAs to support their growing demand from researchers, practitioners, elected and appointed officials, and the public. This toolkit is designed to provide a valuable roadmap for analysts creating CBAs. The toolkit concludes by delineating best practices when performing a justice CBA.
To download the publication, click here.