The report measures such out-of-pocket costs as legal fees, police work and lost work time as well as such intangibles as mental-health-care costs and reduced quality of life for crime victims and their families. These figures were released in "Victim Costs and Consequences: A New Look," a report sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, the U.S. Justice Department's research division.

The report excludes the costs of the nation's jails, prisons and probation and parole systems, which add another $40 billion to the cost of crime, according to Justice Department statistics, bringing the total yearly cost of crime in the United States to almost $500 billion.

To put this sum in perspective, this estimated total cost of crime is almost double the entire 1995 U.S. Defense Department's budget of $252.6 billion. (Source: The New York Times.) GN