The Distribution of Event Complexity in the British Columbia Court System: An Analysis Based on the CourBC Analytical System

This paper reports an exploratory research on the distribution of event complexity in the British Columbia court system. Analysis of event distribution shows that the frequency of events sharply decreases with the increase in the number of persons and counts. The most frequently observed type of event is the event that has one person involved with one count. The number of events observed sharply declines when we query for events with a larger number of people involved or more counts charged. It is found that the number of events observed exponentially decreases when more complex events comprising more counts are analyzed. The same exponential decrease is observed for events with two or more people. This means that, in general, the least complex events are the most frequently observed ones. The events with more than one person involved have a mode of two counts. A first approximation model for the distribution of the load on the system based on different levels of complexity is proposed. The proposed model can be used for and be evaluated by predicting the load distribution in the BC criminal court system.