Statistical Society NSW Monthly Meeting: Menéndez -- Statistical Methods to Study the Effect of the 2014 Lockout Laws in Sydney

The June meeting of the NSW Branch of the Statistical Society is a public lecture at
UTS.  The talk is on a very hot topic: the Kings Cross lockout laws! 

All are welcome, see details below: 

Cheers, 

Michael 

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Date: Tuesday, 16 June 2015 

Time: 
6:00pm - 6.30pm: Refreshments 
6:30pm - 7.30pm: Lecture 
7:30pm - 8:00pm: Dinner (at a nearby restaurant) 

Venue: Auditorium, Level 2, University of Technology, Sydney - Building 7, 638 Jones
Street, Ultimo, NSW 2007 

Dr Patricia Menéndez NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research 

Statistical Methods to Study the Effect of the 2014 Lockout Laws in Sydney 

Following the history of fatal alcohol-related violence in the Kings Cross Entertainment
Precinct in Sydney, many calls were made for tougher regulations on licensed premises.
On the 21st of January 2014, the New South Wales State government announced new
restrictions on licensed premises to curb alcohol related violence in the Kings Cross
and Sydney CBD Entertainment Precincts.  

We investigated the effects of the legislative reforms introduced in January 2014 using
time series structural models.  The data consist of monthly counts of non- domestic
assaults in NSW between January 2009 and September 2014.  In the evaluation, several
regions in Sydney were considered to study the possibility of crime displacement or
geographical diffusion of benefits as a result of the new reforms.  

This talk aims to provide an insight into the statistical methodology used for this
evaluation as well as to present the statistical results of the study.  

Keywords: Lockouts, time series structural models, alcohol-related violence, Kings
Cross, Sydney.  

Biography of Dr Patricia Menéndez: 

Dr Patricia Menéndez is a mathematical statistician working at the NSW Bureau of Crime
Statistics and Research.  Patricia’s research interests are on time series and spatial
analyses, computational statistical methods and statistical applications on crime
research, genetics, and environmental problems.  

Patricia discovered her passion for research during her research fellowship at Okayama
University in Japan granted by the Japanese government which later led her to pursue her
doctoral studies.  After completing her PhD in 2009 at the ETH, Zurich in Switzerland,
she went to Wageningen University (The Netherlands) as a postdoctoral fellow and after
that held a visiting professorship at the Public University of Navarre in Spain.  

In 2012 Patricia moved to Australia to work as a visiting researcher at the UNSW, after
which she became a lecturer in the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University
of Queensland.