Project Description
The Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney General was seeking funding for investment in an integrated justice information system (IJIS), and needed a benefit-cost assessment to persuade the Queensland Government to fund the project. Strategex staff offered justice system modelling and thinking.
We developed a systems model of the criminal justice across police, courts and corrections, and:
- Consulted with users to understand the interactions across criminal justice system and their potential for improvement
- Reviewed literature about modelling approaches
- Analysed available data
- Developed specifications to build an agent-based simulation model
- Analysed development environments and chose Java
- Managed a team of programmers doing coding
- Calibrated the model using publicly available data
- Modelled the base case without IJIS and the project case with IJIS
- Estimated the benefits as reductions in overall costs of justice system operation and crime with IJIS
- Presented findings to Queensland Treasury
- Prepared systems documentation
The work was peer-reviewed and accepted by Professor Anna Stewart of Justice Modelling at Griffith University.
The findings were also accepted by Queensland Treasury, who approved IJIS funding as described in this paper.
The method was also discussed the approach with people responsible for benefits realisation from integrated justice information systems in the United Kingdom.
Naturally the system model and simulation code apply to criminal justice systems more widely, although the model would need to be re-calibrated.
Contact Strategex to learn how agent-based systems modelling can assist you.
