The impact of crime on the mental wellbeing of communities

不仅考虑犯罪对受害者的直接影响，而且考虑生活在犯罪率较高的社区的间接后果，事实上可能导致对犯罪活动对社会后果的规模进行更准确的分析。此外，还有一种情况可能是，某些犯罪对非受害人的负面外部影响比其他犯罪大得多。如果是这种情况，它可能会对目前警察资源在不同犯罪中的分配方式产生影响。因此，更好地了解犯罪对受害者和非受害者造成的社会总成本有助于改进公共政策。

Considering not only the direct impact of crime on the victims but also the indirect consequences of living in a community with a higher crime rate may in fact lead to a more accurate analysis of the size of the consequences of criminal activities on the society. Further, it may also be the case that the negative externality of crime on non-victims is much larger for some crimes than for others. If this were the case, it could have implications for the way in which police resources are presently distributed across different crimes. Better understanding the total societal cost of crime - to both victims and non-victims - could therefore help improve public policy.