Judith Collins

Wellington, Sept 3 NZPA - It costs about $3.6 million to put a murderer through the justice system, Police Minister Judith Collins says.

She outlined the economic cost of crime -- about $11 billion a year in total -- in a speech to a law firm in Auckland this afternoon.

"Criminal behaviour is like a tax on the entire economy," she said.

"It reduces the competitiveness of our businesses, reallocates resources creating uncertainty and inefficiency and discourages domestic and foreign direct investment."

Ms Collins said in 2003-04, the last year figures were available for, the cost of crime to the country was about $9.1b -- which she estimated would be about $11b in today's dollars.

Of the $9.1b, the costs to the private sector were $7b and to the public sector $2.1b.

The cost of police, the courts and corrections was $3.5b a year while the human cost for victims and their families was impossible to count, Ms Collins said.

While it cost $3.6m to put a murderer through the system it cost $316,700 for grievous bodily harm cases; $10,450 for a burglar and $61,600 for a car thief.

Other figures included:

* the average cost of keeping an offender in jail was $91,000 a year;

* the combined profit for criminals from methamphetamine and cannabis sales was up to $2.2b a year;

* illicit drug use in 2005-06 was estimated to cause $1.31b in enforcement, health-care and loss of productivity from drug use;

* Methamphetamine addicts committed property crimes averaging $1840 a month and drug-dealing of $5100 a month to feed their habit; and, on the other side of the ledger;

* $19.7m of assets had been seized from gangs since a law was passed allowing proceeds of crime to be taken was passed in 2009.

Ms Collins said the Government was tackling crime and putting efforts into prevention.