title: [Explanation and forecast: relapse of juvenile offenders].
abstract: On the basis of n=82 juvenile offenders from a prison for juvenile offenders in Rheinland Pfalz the model of the logistic regression is compared with a procedure from the family of the neural nets in its efficiency to explain and predict "relapse" in form of a renewed imprisonment or prosecution /police search after dismissal. The group which can be examined is limited by the population of the prison for juvenile offenders and the explaining variables for "relapse" as "addicted to drugs" present non-metric scaling. For the explanation only probabilities for "relapse" can be indicated in this connection. By means of this probability it is possible to classify the individual case. The forecast is simulated by coincidental dividing of the data: the first part of the data is used for the explanation, the second for the forecast. With the comparison of the logistic regression with the neural nets, the superiority of neural nets in the explanation of "relapse" can be shown, since the neural nets are able to consider dependence between the explaining variables and according to that they offer a differentiated explanation. Their efficiency to predict "relapse" depends on the comparability of the distribution in the two coincidentally provided samples, the training data record for determining the explanation and the test case for the use of the explanation regarding the forecast. For optimal explanation and forecast neural nets are to be preferred to the logistic regression, since in the model with the better explanation also includes the potential for a usable better forecast. Moreover the model of the logistic regression is in fact a special case of the neural net, with a reduced complexity of the net.
authors.affiliation: Doktorand an der Universität Kassel. sgiebel@mathematik.uni-kassel.de
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Giebel
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D006801:Humans; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000639:trends*; D008189:Luxembourg / Q000453:epidemiology; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012008:Recurrence; D012044:Regression Analysis