From the 2026 budget audit
Crime prevention spending: which programmes actually reduce crime?
915 million forints funds a national crime prevention strategy whose programme mix has not been evaluated against demonstrated reductions in offending.
About 229 Ft per taxpayer per year — 915 million Ft — for prevention activities whose effectiveness against actual crime rates is unverified.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: a national strategy with funded offices and programmes. The unseen: the evidence on which crime-prevention activities actually reduce reoffending — evidence that a centrally-allocated strategy budget cannot generate, because it never tests alternative allocations against outcomes.
Objection
"Prevention is always better than prosecution — we should invest in stopping crime before it happens."
Answer
The case for effective prevention is strong. The question is which specific activities reduce crime, at what cost, compared to what alternative. The freeze does not reject prevention — it refuses to expand a strategy budget before an evidence review identifies the components that demonstrably work.
Share if you think crime prevention money should follow the evidence, not the strategy document.
The analyst's verdict
Support for the National Crime Prevention Strategy task system
Rationale
Crime prevention has a genuine claim adjacent to the retained policing function, but the programme-mix knowledge problem applies — which prevention activity works, at what intensity, is a contested allocation a central strategy budget cannot optimise. Held flat pending an evidence review of which crime-prevention activities demonstrably reduce offending.
Transition mechanism
Hold the nominal allocation flat pending an evidence review of which crime-prevention activities demonstrably reduce offending.
Affected groups
Crime-prevention programme staff and organisations; communities served by crime-prevention activity; no immediate displacement.
Free Society Institute
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