Forecasting Criminal Justice Populations

The following case study was sent to us by Garron Guszak, Senior Criminal Justice Specialist at the Texas Legislative Budget Board. We are always keen to hear how our users have used SIMUL8 to improve their business. If you have an interesting story please let us know. All case study submitters receive an iPod Nano for their contribution.

Background Info

Garron and his team used SIMUL8 to develop a simulation of their justice system in order to test a variety of Texas Justice Reinvestment Scenarios. They used the simulation to predict the budgetary impact, both long and short term, of making strategic changes to the system. Their story reiterates how SIMUL8 can be used to make key business decisions with minimal risk.

The problem

Over the last 20 years, the prison system in Texas has dramatically expanded, with significant investment made in increasing prison capacities. Despite this investment, the Texas department of Criminal Justice is still forced to contract with county jails to house around 2000 prisoners due to prison overflow, at a cost of $27.5 million per year. It had also been forecasted that the number of prisoners will continue to grow if the existing policies remain unchanged, therefore ongoing strategic preparation for this growth is crucial.

In an attempt to deal with these increasing populations, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice requested $377.7 million for 4080 additional prison beds to be incorporated by 2012, however this would still not be sufficient to handle the growth anticipated.

It was therefore decided that rather than buying and creating space for additional beds, strategic reinvestment decisions would be made to try and reduce the demand for prison space.

The approach

A SIMUL8 simulation was built to enable the Legislative Budget Board to test the impact of various Texas Justice Reinvestment scenarios. These included:

• Funding for additional counseling
• Treatment beds for people on probation
• Parole supervision to increase the chances of successful supervision while reducing the number of persons failing and going to prison.

In addition to these scenarios, the simulation had to convey the impact that these reinvestment scenarios would have on the parole board members willingness to approve parole candidates for release as this would in turn affect the number going to prison.

The simulation had to allow for quick and easy experimental analysis. Costs had to be applied for each step in the process, allowing the end user to quickly determine the cost implications in applying various proposed scenarios. This meant that clear and easily accessible results from the simulation were highly important.

“SIMUL8 provided a relatively easy to use model that was adaptable for different modeling assumptions, provided output customized for easy interpretation and allowed for quick turnaround of requests”

The following components and capabilities were incorporated to the SIMUL8 simulation:

• An input component that feeds the simulation with system intakes, allowing for growth trends and seasonal variations
• An input file that allows for changes in the simulation with regards to admissions, such as length of stay, time served requirements, age, health status, residence etc.
• Detailed reports of monthly populations, intakes and release activity which are downloaded to spreadsheets after model runs
• An input for stock (beginning) population
• Apply / alter capacity constraints at any point in time

Inclusion of all these capabilities allowed for a flexible tool that could be used to test many different Texas Justice Reinvestment Scenarios both quickly and easily:

“The SIMUL8 model has been incredibly adaptable and used for many different purposes”

The result

Having built, run and tested scenarios in the SIMUL8 simulation, key decisions were made based upon the results obtained. Lawmakers agreed to a plan where $221 million would be used for treatment and sanction programs.

It was also determined that by implementing their proposed scenarios, future prison populations would be significantly lower than those previously forecasted.

Going forward, the model will be used to help law makers and policy makers understand the connections between different segments of the criminal justice system, subsequently allowing for policy options to prepare for and alleviate the current projected growth in prison populations.

This application is a classic example of how SIMUL8 can be used to predict performance, taking the risk out of decision making and preventing costly business errors.

SIMUL8 German Training Courses

We are delighted to announce that there will be a 2-day course, 'Process Modeling Using SIMUL8' in Munich on 4-5 December 2007.

This course gives a comprehensive overview of the main features of SIMUL8. It is fast moving, but highly interactive and practical. By the end of the course participants will be able to undertake their own simulation projects and identify projects for which simulation is an appropriate tool. Material will be available in both German and English.

Please contact us at Training@SIMUL8.com for further details or to reserve a place.

Operational Research Society Simulation Workshop - Call for Papers

The Simulation Workshop brings together practitioners and academics working in the field of discrete-event simulation. It provides an opportunity to exchange ideas on the current and future state-of-the-art in simulation and Modeling

It will be held 1 - 2 April 2008 at the Abbey Hotel Golf and Country Club, Worcestershire , England. The deadline to submit a paper is 31st October.

For more information visit the OR Society website.

Showcasing Simulation at Warwick

The OR Society Simulation Special Interest Group has organized a workshop day:“Showcasing Simulation At Warwick” on Wednesday 24th October 2007, 10.00am-3:30pm at Warwick Business School, The University of Warwick.

Speakers

• Professor Stewart Robinson: Overview of Simulation at Warwick.
• Professor Ruth Davies: Agent based simulation applied to Hospital acquired infectious diseases.
• Dr Katy Hoad: Automating the Analysis of Simulation Output Data. (Project co-sponsored by SIMUL8).
• Dr Kathy Kotiadis & Dr Navonil Mustafee: Conceptual modeling in health care.
• Ernie Lee: A quest for a better VIS-based knowledge elicitation tool
• Antuela Tako: Comparing Discrete-Event Simulation and System Dynamics: the user perspective.
• Chris Watts: Modeling Motivation: Understanding problem-solving processes in social networks.
• Stavrianna Dimitriou: Incentive Alignment in Supply Chains: The Use of Agent Based Simulation.

If you would like to attend this event please contact Dr Katy Hoad. Please note that there will be a small charge of £18 per person for refreshments and food.

If you have any questions generated from, or comments about this newsletter then email Newsletter@SIMUL8.com