The following model portrays the patterns of crime and community development in Bourke. Bourke is a town with exceptionally high rates of crime, especially within the youth population. The model created shows the methods taken to allow more community investment and more level of law enforcement (or the combination of both).
Underlying Assumptions:
Bourke total population: 2,973 (2014 ABS)
Bourke total youth population: approx 1000 (Based on 2014 ABS, individuals aged between 0-24 Which correlates to approximately 35.2% of the Total Population)
Budget: $4,000,000
Youth population has been sourced from: http://stat.abs.gov.au/itt/r.jsp?RegionSummary®ion=11150&dataset=ABS_REGIONAL_LGA&geoconcept=REGION&datasetASGS=ABS_REGIONAL_ASGS&datasetLGA=ABS_REGIONAL_LGA®ionLGA=REGION®ionASGS=REGION
The Assumption of the model is that we begin with a population of young individuals who are neither criminal or non-criminal/committed the crime. Based on this idea, 250 of these individuals are currently incarcerated and 250 are currently committing crime though when simulated the model will illustrate how Law enforcement spending, community investment can impact Bourke's youth population.
Furthermore, after conducting some research, it can be concluded that based on several sources such as (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/criminology-can-lack-education-linked-incarceration-nigel-wade) and (https://hilo.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/documents/Vol07x03TheCauseofCrime.pdf)
That lack of education such as tafe or career skills can lead to increasing crime rates as important social skills can be developed in schooling.
The Sliders of this complex system represent the extent of spending by Law Enforcement, community investment
Parameters:
Community Investment
Law Enforcement
Adjusting spending of these parameters will present different results and different relationships.
About this Model:
The Units of measure has been set to months
Simulation Length is set to 48 months
It must be mentioned that it takes approximately 6 months before youth are sufficiently engaged
The flow committed is a negative relationship, therefore the lower the level of law enforcement chosen, the greater the level of crime will be committed
Similarly, incarcerated into prison will be based on the level of enforcement, if greater law enforcement is applied, there will be more individuals incarcerated and put into prison, vice versa, the less law enforcement applied, more crime will go unnoticed.
Attending Tafe/education relies of the level of community investment spent by the government, If the state government decided to invest more into the community, more youth population will be attending Tafe, though in contrast if less is spent towards Tafe/Eduction, less engagement will occur with the youth population
Tafe/Education is directly linked with the level of crime committed, if more youth population attends tafe/education due to increase in community investment, less crime will be committed. Though, Consequently, the less youth population who attends Tafe/education, the more they will potentially engage in committing a crime.
During periods of high attendance, it was evident that crime rate would drop, though when tafe/education levels have drops to 0 (0 level assumes that youth population either finished the course or left early), crime begins to increase again.
Interesting Simulations
Increasing Community and Law Enforcement to high levels, crime rate decreases and prison rate would naturally increase. Though there seems to be large drops in youths in the town, this can be associated with the large level of community investment as the youth would potentially be in Tafe/Educations during those periods
When simulating with Law Enforcement set to about half way (25) and community investment at 50-70, Tafe/Education begins to severely increase on simulations but has period of decline, which can be linked to completion of course or leaving. During the spike of Tafe/education, crime is quite low, though when it begins to decline, crime starts to once again increase (Tafe/Education vs Crime)
Another interesting simulation is interaction of youth within community sports. Their is allocation for sports spending for youth to help them engage in positive activity in order to avoid crime. By adjusting sports investment it was evident that crime committed was impacted. The most investment into sports, the lower level of crime is committed, if we reduce sports investment, we can see that crime committed begins to increase
Looking at the Released simulation, we acknowledged that is takes approximately 6 months for youth to properly be engaged, so this makes perfect sense that after 6 months, less prisoners are being released as less crime is being committed due to community sports and Tafe/Education
Final Conclusions:
It seems Crime is impacted by many factors such as Tafe/education and community sports. Though the level of crime fluctuates using the parameters, Law Enforcement, Community investment.
By increasing any of these parameters, you will begin to see crime reduce as youth are occupied with other activities in their lives.
Law enforcement does assist with crime but it more so allows less crime to go unnoticed (return) as prison intake increases because more youth are being caught and incarcerated.