The Cost of Crime provides estimates of the annual cost of crime in the United States. A betterunderstanding of the repercussions of crime could guide the prioritization of law enforcement,education, and social programs that deter criminal activity. Traditional measures of criminalactivity count crimes or estimate direct costs that typically include the costs of policing,corrections, criminal justice, and replacing stolen merchandise. This study estimates the burdenof a broad set of crime's repercussions, both direct and indirect, to tell a more complete story.This study places less emphasis on imprecise counts of crimes than most previous measuresof crime's burden. The comprehensive approach adopted here captures several types of costshifting that can result from crime prevention efforts. The inclusion of private crime preventionexpenditures in this study captures the potential for public expenditures to reduce total societaloutlays for crime, with or without a decrease in the crime rate. The comprehensive scope of thisstudy also accounts for regional shifts in crime. This study examines costs for the entire nation,which accounts for the possibility of losses in one region of the United States substituting forlosses in another.For the purposes of this research, the cost of crime is defined to include all costs that wouldnot exist in the absence of illegal behavior under current law. The benchmark in this study isperfect compliance with the law. The Cost of Crime speaks to the benefits of cooperation andethical behavior. In the ideal state of voluntary legal compliance, there would be no need forexpenditures on crime prevention, no costly repercussions of criminal acts, and no losses dueto fear and distrust. We will not reach that ideal state, but with knowledge of the full cost ofcrime, we also know the benefit of eliminating a more realistic fraction of that cost. Validquestions remain regarding the inclusion of particular cost components in the calculation ofcrime's burden. The approach here is to sidestep unsolvable debates by providing itemized listsof crime-cost elements. This enables the reader to adopt customized formulations for the costof crime.