In the early 1980s Washington State developed a simulation forecast for inmate populations that was used to estimate the impact of the state's pioneering sentencing guideline initiative. This process presented forecasting challenges that occurred in three phases over a 10-year period. Different types of forecasting challenges were specific to each of the three phases. These challenges are described along two dimensions: forecast horizon and level of detail. Various combinations of horizon and detail sometimes required mutually exclusive assumptions that yielded much different results.
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