NCJ Number
196080
Date Published
2001
Length
158 pages
Annotation
This document describes a forecasting model of the capacity needed in child protection and juvenile justice.
Abstract
In the Netherlands, the WODC (Research and Documentation Center) has been responsible for the yearly release of forecasts of the capacity needed for various judicial sanctions and measures since 1998. One of the goals of the WODC is to improve the methodological quality in the various areas covered by the forecasts. Juveniles enter the judicial system either by civil or penal law procedure. The model explains the various socioeconomic, demographic, and law enforcement variables such as income, number of juveniles, divorce rate, migration, percentage of non-natives, and the arrest rate. An error-correction model is used to allow for long-term and short-term relations of the variables. Long-term relations dominate the results. Twenty-percent of the inflow into the civil law channel is accounted for by the explanatory variables and 40 percent by trend, which is acceptable for forecasting purposes but not in terms of explanation. The inflow into the penal channel (the number of juvenile suspects) is differentiated according to four types of offenses: simple theft, aggravated theft, violent crime, and other offenses. With the exception of the latter type, the explanatory variables account for 50 percent to 60 percent of the variance. The trend accounts for less than 10 percent. This is satisfactory, especially since the most important type of offense in terms of capacity requirements –- violence -– is mainly accounted for by the percentage of second-generation non-natives. The percentage of second-generation non-natives can be quite precisely forecasted, unlike most other explanatory variables. A second stage of the model estimates the transformation of the inflow into community service orders of different kinds (alternative forms of punishment and task sanctions) and required placement capacity in detention and remedial juvenile institutions. The associated capacity requirements have been modeled by means of a stock flow model in order to allow for the long duration of civil and penal measures. Due to data problems the modeling of the second stage is sketchy in several parts. While the present explanatory model is thought to be the best that is currently available, substantial improvements can be made when more detailed information becomes available. 40 figures, 23 tables, 77 footnotes