Feb 12
16
SimuLaw – Progress Report & Schedule
During the last week I have been reviewing all the material I can find on modeling legal process using various simulation tools. There are a small handful of articles on using agents to simulate legal proceses, but none directly on point to my thesis. In addition, I have also been working in RePast Simphony and moving through the tutorials on working in that environment. Finally, I have been researching the process of using Java in Processing and building libraris for Processing. Both seem possible.
I have also been working on building a mental model for a very simple agent based simulation of a legal process. The simplest I can think of would be an examination of “jay-walking” (e.g., cross a street against a traffic light).
There would like be three classes of actors:
Pedestrians – Pedestrians want to cross the street as quickly as possible, but do not want to get hit by a car or fined by the police. Pedestrians will check for the presence of police, the presence of cars, the condition of the light (a “2 state light” versus a “3 state light” may be an interesting component), and the presence of other pedestrians in the cross walk.
Cars – Cars want to pass through the traffic light without hitting a pedestrian or getting fined by the police. They want to go as fast as possible. Cars may be interested in running red lights, but this adds another layer of depth to the simulation.
Police – Police want to prevent pedestrians from crossing against the light and cars from hitting pedestrians.
The rules that affect the behavior of the pedestrians, from a purely legal standpoint, will be the severity of the punishment for breaking the law, the likelihood of getting caught and the likelihood of being hit by a car.