It is not possible to sustain human or economic development without securing cities. The failure to keep crime to a minimum costs cities and countries dear.

The reaction to crime requires taxes for policing and criminal justice, uses up scarce resources on private security and may precipitate the use of force that potentially violates human rights. Urban violence contributes significantly to emergency and general health-care costs, which drastically limit the resources available for sustainable development and improved quality of life. As cities serve as an economic motor, this scenario is likely to threaten national, economic and human development in many countries.

The detrimental effects of urban crime are not relegated to poor cities alone. In fact, urban crime and the fear of violence have a significant impact on economic development in affluent cities. The abandonment of neighbourhoods by their most positive elements and the decrease in consumer traffic drive businesses out. House values drop, buildings deteriorate and taxes are no longer available to pay for services. Industries opt for other sites and so the cycle continues.

The Human Development Report 1994 [1] drew attention to one country, the United States of America, where the costs of urban crime have been calculated. It quotes costs of $425 billion a year or about $4,000 per household.

This total comprises $90 billion for police, courts and prisons, or 7 per cent of United States Government expenditures for 1993: $65 billion was spent on private security; $45 billion on compensation for property loss; $50 billion for urban decay and loss of investment and $175 billion to compensate for the costs of ruined lives. The total represents about 7 per cent of the gross national product of the United States.

The per capita costs of the police, courts and corrections, private security and goods stolen are of a similar order for most industrialized countries. The economic costs of lives ruined will be lower in countries with lower rates of murder and higher for countries with higher rates of murder.[2]

While developed countries spend 2-3 per cent of their budgets on crime prevention and criminal justice, developing countries devote 9-14 per cent of their budgets to such endeavours.[3] Compared with industrialized countries, even more is lost by the lack of investment in these perceived trouble areas. Additionally, although the dollar-value of lives ruined may be lower owing to the low wage scales, the human costs in developing countries and countries in transition may be greater owing to the younger ages of the victims.

On the global level, the economic cost of the harm done by urban violence probably exceeds several trillion dollars. The present article identifies some promising methods for reducing crime, which, in turn, would reduce these costs.