Carbon footprint of crime

What is it about?

Policy makers currently examine the economic and social impacts of crime, but the environmental impacts have not, to date, been included. By applying carbon emissions factors to the monetized costs of crime using environmentally-extended input-output analysis, we estimate the carbon footprint of crime committed in England and Wales in 2011 to be over 4 million metric tons CO2e - equivalent to the carbon emissions of around 900,000 UK homes. Of the offence types considered, burglary resulted in the largest proportion of the total footprint (30%) due to large volume of offences and the carbon associated with replacing stolen or damaged goods. Criminal justice system services (policing, prisons and courts) also accounted for a large proportion of the total footprint (21% of all crime and 49% of police recorded offences). The limitations to the findings are particularly interesting and predominantly result from the footprinting methodology. Although it is tempting to conclude from the research that crime reduction will automatically result in a reduction of carbon emissions, this is not necessarily the case, due to the rebound effect. That is, we considered how money currently spent addressing crime might be spent in the absence of crime. By comparing the carbon emissions associated with this re-spending of the money with the carbon footprint of crime, we found that the most likely rebound effect would be an increase in emissions of around 2%.

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