A mathematical model for the treatment of delinquent behaviour

J. Sooknanan and D.M.G. Comissiong

Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 2018, vol. 63, issue C, 60-69

Abstract: A key predictor variable for juvenile delinquency is the presence of delinquent peers. Consequently, delinquent behaviour may be treated as a socially infectious disease spread by peer influence and its spread modelled using a compartmental model from mathematical epidemiology. A Public Health Approach was used to design the model and this system was found to have three equilibrium states – two with no serious delinquents (non-status offenders) and one with both serious delinquents and status offenders coexisting. We employed a sensitivity analysis on the basic Reproductive number R0, and identified the parameters that should be targeted by treatment strategies to curb the spread of juvenile delinquency. This model may be used by policy makers to provide insights to inform policy creation as well as to set tangible targets for the proportion of delinquents treated and the detention rate.

Keywords: Juvenile delinquency; Infectious disease model; Compartmental model; Bifurcation analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038012116302154
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceps:v:63:y:2018:i:c:p:60-69

DOI: 10.1016/j.seps.2017.08.001

Access Statistics for this article

Socio-Economic Planning Sciences is currently edited by Barnett R. Parker

More articles in Socio-Economic Planning Sciences from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().