Description of the Model:
This model represents the youth community of the town of Bourke, where boredom and lack of motivation is a key issue in the community that has lead to an increase in crime.
The state government has decided to spend money in the town, and the model represents the effects of the level of funding as well as the effects of how the funding is used.
The model can be useful for the state government to decide how much they should spend, and whether it should be spent on policing or sporting clubs and trade schools, while also accounting for the effectiveness of the program and deciding how strict the juvenile detention center should be.
The Model in Detail:
Good Children:
The model assumes that all the children (Based on an estimated 1000 children) are good at the beginning. They very gradually become bored regardless of the level of social sports clubs, as not all children may be interesting in sports.
The funding towards sports clubs and the effectiveness of the programs determine the rate of boredom among the good children.
Bored Mischievous Children:
As children get bored, they will cause mischief and varying degrees of crime.
The level of funding for sports and the effectiveness of the program will affect the level of social engagement that will pull children away from causing mischief, and become good children again.
At the same time the level of funding for policing will affect how many of the trouble making youths get caught and placed in juvenile detention.
Juvenile Detention:
Once the children are in Juvenile detention, they must serve their time to be released.
The release rate reflects how well behaving inmates are released, and the strictness of the sentences applied to youths.
Once they are released, they are still considered bored and causing mischief until they reengaged with the community through social activities funded by the state government such as playing sports.
Adjustments to the Model:
Government Funding:
The state government has decided to spend in Bourke to reduce the level of crime thought to be caused by boredom in teens.
The slider can be adjusted from 0.1 to 100 to reflect the level of funding that the town should receive, where 100 is the maximum and 0.1 is very little funding.
Funding Ratio:
The funding Ratio can slide from 0.1 to 0.9 (left to right). When the slider is at 0.9, 90% the funding goes to policing which is at the right of the diagram and 10% goes to sports clubs.
At 0.1, 90% of the funding goes to Sports clubs which is at the left of the diagram, and only 10% will go to more policing.
Release Rate:
As part of solving the criminal mindset of youths in Bourke, the state government may decide to also be more lenient towards good behaving youths in detention centers by letting them out earlier to reduce the negative influence of other detainees, or simply shortening the time spent in general.
A higher release rate allows more youths to be released meaning a more lenient approach can be modelled.
Effectiveness of Program:
The state government may choose to run various programs with various levels of effectiveness before resorting to diverting spending on policing.
The state government can model the consequences of ineffective programs as well as the benefits of a well run program.
An effectiveness of 1 is maximum effectiveness, while an effectiveness of 0 will result in no effect as result of spending.
Initial Values:
Good Children: 1000
Bored Mischievous Children: 0
Juvenile Detention: 0
Government funding: 100
Funding Ratio: 0.75
Release Rate: 0.1
Effectiveness of Program: 1
