| Abstract: | The recent increase in offences has provoked a call for longer prison terms under the assumption that longer prison terms reduce offences. A critical barrier to examining this assumption is the unavailability of consistent data on offences and the recidivism due to the separation of various agencies in the criminal justice. This paper examines the assumption by proposing a total system model over separated agencies to estimate the figures needed. This model also enables one to forecast the caseload of the system and to identify critical factors for crime control. |
