NCJ Number
213817
Date Published
February 2006
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This paper describes the development of the Queensland Juvenile Justice Simulation Model (QJJSM), currently used by the Queensland juvenile justice system to assess the short and long term effects of policies.
Abstract
The primary purpose of the QJJSM is to analyze the impact of proposed changes to the juvenile justice system. It accomplishes this by estimating a baseline model to use as a comparison against the proposed system changes. The authors modeled a family-based counseling program for 5 to 10 year olds commencing in 2001. The model predicted a reduction of 6.5 percent in the number of court appearances by Indigenous offenders across the juvenile justice system and a reduction of 1.7 percent in court appearances by Indigenous offenders by 2011, resulting in an approximate savings of $2.5 million per year by 2011. The QJJSM is an easily maintained tool that allows juvenile justice practitioners to evaluate the medium-term impact of policies before they are implemented. The QJJSM is a parsimonious micro-simulation model of the juvenile justice system that has the capability to estimate the relative impact of prospective changes to the system in the medium term. The QJJSM was developed so that stakeholders could examine both the way individuals moved through the system and the broad numbers of young people at various points in the system. It was constructed in the proprietary micro-simulation package Extend. An online version of the model is available. Figures, table, references