Economic Benefits of Multisystemic Therapy for Serious Juvenile Offenders and Their Siblings: An Updated Cost-Benefit Analysis

Introduction: Cost-beneficial treatments are necessary to reduce the financial and social consequences of juvenile crime. In a previous study, multisystemic therapy (MST) was shown to prevent future criminal offending among serious juvenile offenders and their siblings, resulting in economic benefits to taxpayers and crime victims (i.e., a cumulative benefit of $37,987 per family). However, this study may have underestimated MST benefits because it used a conservative approach that assumed all savings occurred at the end of the follow-up period. The present study used an expansive approach, which estimated benefits annually, to investigate the costs and benefits of MST versus individual therapy (IT) over 25 years following treatment.

Methods: Participants were 176 youths and any closest-in-age sibling (N = 129) who participated in a randomized clinical trial. Benefits of prevented crimes were estimated on an annual basis across three categories: (a) taxpayer benefits (i.e., avoided criminal justice system costs), (b) tangible benefits to victims (i.e., avoided tangible losses), and (c) intangible benefits to victims (i.e., avoided pain and suffering). Treatment costs of MST and IT were obtained from the budgets of community treatment providers. Criminal arrest data were collected via Missouri public records. Analyses were performed using a well-established cost-benefit model (from the Washington State Institute for Public Policy) designed to evaluate intervention programs for offenders.

Results: Reductions in criminality in the MST versus IT conditions for juvenile offenders and siblings were associated with substantially lower expenses to taxpayers and to crime victims. Preliminary analyses suggest that cumulative benefits for avoided crimes per family ranged up to $52,925 for juvenile offenders and up to $10,756 for siblings. Overall, it was estimated that every dollar spent on MST recovered up to $6.83 to taxpayers and crime victims in the 25 years following treatment. These results also suggested that the use of a conservative analytic approach in previous research underestimated MST benefits by over $17,000 per family.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that MST resulted in substantial savings to taxpayers and crime victims due to its preventive effects on future criminal offending for juvenile offenders and their siblings. Such cost savings are important for administrators and policymakers to consider when allocating scarce financial resources to interventions for serious juvenile offenders. Communities that invest in MST, and in other family-based interventions that demonstrate economic benefits, are likely to recoup their costs while improving public safety.