The economic effects of crime are significant.  Victim and taxpayer costs of crime continue to escalate and scarcer public funds must now be allocated in ways to more efficiently alleviate the economic pressures of crime.  Fowles, Byrnes and Hickert (2005) studied on the economic consequences of various security intervention programs with the intention to reduce crime based on statistical analysis of 309 studies of the intervention programs.  The analysis provides a menu; which allow decision makers to assess the economic performance of one program relative to another in term of standard monetary measures.

Cost for implementation of any security initiatives is always a concern to the business.  Research conducted by Signoret (2009) after the implementation of Cargo Security Initiatives (CSI) by the US government in several foreign ports found that there is no significant impact on trade flows or implicit costs.  The researcher analyzed detailed monthly data for all containerized US imports from 1999 to 2006, by foreign port and country of origin.  This analysis exploits the longitudinal data at the port level and the carrying starting dates across CSI ports to identify the casual effect of the initiative on import costs.  While significantly higher monetary import charges over time are observed in the data and particularly so for CSI ports, the result found no significant evidence of a CSI effects on these trade costs.  The underlying port specific trends and unobservable trade route heterogeneity are in controlled.

Freight security initiatives do not necessarily result in cost increased or reduced services.  Security improvements can also reduce logistics and supply chain costs by improving supply chain visibility and enhancing transit reliability, resulting in collateral benefits to efficiency and effectiveness of the supply chain.  Supply chain and transportation security improvements may improve security and thus producing collateral benefits to security management within the supply chain.  DAMF Consultants and LP Tardiff & Associates (2005) estimated the post 9/11 costs the Canadian trucking industry about USD$179 million to USD$405 million per annum due to the changes in Unites States border security programs.  A number of issues were raised by carriers and shippers in the study that are contributing to this problem included:

j) the lack of FAST lanes at certain border crossing;

k) having to wait in a general queue in order to get access to FAST lanes;

l) the uncertainty of wait times at the border that causes some truckers to build in a delay factor in the planning of their operations;

m) restricted hours of operation at the border or number or customs booth open at the border, particul