| Operational researchers at the Research, Development, and Statistics Directorate of the Home Office (A UK Government Department) have developed a new projection methodology based on a flow model of offenders, which allows the effects of changes in sentencing policy to be predicted. At the heart of the methodology is a theory of offending which allows the number of first offenders to be predicted as well as the recidivism of those released from prison. The paper gives a customer's account of pursuing the model in practice, how we interpreted and presented the results, and the effects of ongoing changes in policy on the projections. |
Updated 05/20/2006