Bourke Community (C.Woods, 44593961)
Assignment 3: Bourke Crime and Community Development
This complex systems model depicts the impact of factors such as violence and community programs on the youth of Bourke. The time scale is in months and shows the next 6 years. The model aims to show how by altering expenditure in different areas, the town of Bourke can decrease crime and increase their population involvement in community programs. This model is intended to be dynamic to allow the user to change certain variables to see changes in impact
The town of Bourke has a population of 3634 people, 903 of which are classified as youth (being 0-24 inclusive) (ABS, 2016 census).
This population starts with all youths in three differing stocks:
- 703 in Youth
- 100 in Juvenile Detention
- 100 in Rehabilitation
Assumptions:
This model makes many assumptions that would not necessarily uphold in reality.
- Only the youth of the town are committing crimes.
- All convicted youths spend 6 months in juvenile detention.
- All convicted youths must go to rehabilitation after juvenile detention and spend 2 months there.
- The risk rate impacts upon every youth committing a crime and is a broad term covering effects such as abuse.
- No gaol effect, youths do not return to town with a tendency to re- commit a crime.
- No further external factors than those given.
- There cannot be zero expenditure in any of the fields.
The stocks:
Each stock depicts a different action or place that an individual youth may find themselves in.
These stocks include:
- Youth (the youths living in Bourke, where youths are if they are not committing crimes or in community programs)
- Petty Crime (crimes committed by the youths of Bourke such as stealing)
- Juvenile Detention (where convicted youths go)
- Rehabilitation
- Community Programs
The variables:
- Community Expenditure (parameter 0.1-0.4)
- Law Enforcement Expenditure (parameter 0.1-0.6)
- Rehabilitation Expenditure (parameter 0.1-0.4)
- Risk Rate (not adjustable but alters with Law Enforcement Expenditure)
Sliders on each of the expenditure variables have been provided. These variables indicate the percentage of the criminal minimising budget for Bourke.
Note that to be realistic, one should make the three differing sliders be equal to 1, in order to show 100% of expenditure
Base Parameter Settings:
- Law Enforcement Expenditure = 0.5
- Community Expenditure = 0.25
- Rehabilitation Expenditure = 0.25
Interesting Parameter Settings:
- When Law Enforcement is at 0.45 and Community and Rehabilitation at 0.3 and 0.25 (in either order) then convicted and not-convicted values are the same. If Law Enforcement expenditure goes any lower then the number of convicted youths is less than those not-convicted and vice versa if the expenditure is increased.
- When Law Enforcement is at 0.2 and Community and Rehabilitation at 0.4 each then the increase in community programs and decrease in crime and thus detention occurs in a shorter and more rapid time frame. This shows that crime can be minimised in this model almost entirely through community initiatives.
- Alternatively, when Law Enforcement is at 0.6 and Community and Rehabilitation at 0.2 each then the increase in community programs and decrease in crime occurs over a longer time period with more incremental change.
Population Source: