Identifying government investment for enhancing community safety

Jurisdiction: International


How can governments apply resources so as to proactively address social issues before they
escalate and require reactive interventions (e.g. social work, law enforcement etc.)?

Reactive intervention by government agencies may not be the most effective way of pursuing
community safety. Often,such intervention occurs too late - either where the wellbeing of
individuals, families, or the broader community has been threatened, or once a crime has been
committed. At the same time, governments (both commonwealth and state) deliver a wide
variety of critical community services that can have a direct impact on community safety.

There may be opportunities to change the delivery of services (e.g. redistribution, increasing,
re-targeting, or changing the application of resources) so as to reduce the incidence or extent of social issues. Some governments have attempted such an investment model in limited ways
(see https://www.theirfuturesmatter.nsw.gov.au/investment-approach/investment-modelling​).
Where else (e.g. location, demographic, problem area etc.) could governments be looking to
make such investment?

How could this be visualised? Is the data amenable to analytics approaches that produces
insights?

Datasets that may be useful include Commonwealth and state datasets: family violence data; crime data, socio-demographic data; government service provision and take-up; drug and alcohol abuse data; employment data; education data; and so on.

Entry: Challenge entry is available to all teams in Competition 2020.

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