Protest treatment and its impact on the WTP and WTA estimates for theft and robbery in the UK

We undertake a survey that estimates WTP and WTA measures for changes in the
risk of being a victim of a robbery or theft in the UK. Respondents are less likely to protest when they are asked to reveal their WTP rather than WTA. Employing various protest-treatment techniques, we estimate the mean WTP for reducing current risks of theft and robbery by 50% to range between £38 and £220; for WTA, they are between £351 and £2,175. Higher values for robbery reflect people’s aversion to the violence implicit in this type of crime. The annual value of avoiding a statistical case of crime ranges between £7,011 for theft and £90,087 for robbery. WTP-WTA ratios range from 1:4.8 to 1:16.9 and are influenced by type of crime and elicitation method. In turn, these results support the economic sense of a pre-emptive crime policy that prevents, rather than compensates for, crime occurrence.