A crime data analysis framework with geographical information support for intelligence led policing

Abstract

The manual crime recording and investigation systems in police stations all around the world are generating piles of crime documents which make storage and retrieval of reliable crime information extremely difficult as well as inefficient. Furthermore, investigators of central authorities have to manually search through these documents and communicate between the relevant police stations to obtain required information. Eventually, delays in information flow between investigators of crime incidents cannot be avoided. Sri Lanka Police too have been facing the same set of issues over many years. To get rid of pilling of large number of documents annually in police stations, Sri Lanka Police is allowed to destroy the documents related to solved crimes which are older than five years. This may destroy not only "closed files", but also very valuable information that can be used in future crime investigations.To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a web-based framework with geographical information support which contains a centralized database for crime data storage and retrieval. Geographical capabilities of the framework support not only spatial analysis but also provide an efficient solution to current manual crime map generation. Our highly secured and user friendly framework follows the state of the art layered architecture which provides an optimized data model for fast access and easy analysis of crime data. The solution consists of an affluent set of data mining tools which are essential in any crime investigation process. Security of data is ensured with data encryption for sensitive information and by limiting access to the data through a role based access method. Further the data is only accessible through a virtual private network (VPN) connecting all the police stations and other relevant departments of the Police. The The manual crime recording and investigation systems in police stations all around the world 42 are generating piles of crime documents which make storage and retrieval of reliable crime 43 information extremely difficult as well as inefficient. Furthermore, investigators of central 44 authorities have to manually search through these documents and communicate between the 45 relevant police stations to obtain required information. Eventually, delays in information flow 46 between investigators of crime incidents cannot be avoided. Sri Lanka Police too have been 47 facing the same set of issues over many years. To get rid of pilling of large number of 48 documents annually in police stations, Sri Lanka Police is allowed to destroy the documents 49 related to solved crimes which are older than five years. This may destroy not only "closed 50 files", but also very valuable information that can be used in future crime investigations.To 51 overcome this problem, this paper proposes a web-based framework with geographical 52 information support which contains a centralized database for crime data storage and 53 retrieval. Geographical capabilities of the framework support not only spatial ...

Forensic intelligence and the analytical process

“…Sri Lanka Police developed the Crime Investigation Decision Support System (CIDSS, Chamikara et al, ), a web based intelligent crime analysis system. Various processes were incorporated into the system, for instance a crime clock and periodic pattern visualizer (temporal aspects of crimes), crime map and hotspot visualizer (based on geographic information system), and crime comparator and modus operandi analysis (fuzzy matching of links, Chamikara et al, ).…”

Untitled

“…This manual system has many problems such as data redundancy, inefficiency, tediousness, inability to support crime investigation and many other problems associated with a conventional manual system. To overcome these problems, a web-based framework was proposed with geographical information support containing a centralized database for crime data storage and retrieval, named SL-CIDSS: Sri Lanka Crime Investigation and Decision Support System [6].…”

Untitled

“…This manual system has many 74 problems such as data redundancy, inefficiency, tediousness, inability to support crime 75 investigation and many other problems associated with a conventional manual system. To 76 overcome these problems, a web-based framework was proposed with geographical 77 information support containing a centralized database for crime data storage and retrieval, 78 named SL-CIDSS: Sri Lanka Crime Investigation and Decision Support System [6]. 79 According to the penal code of Sri Lanka first enacted in 1882 and amended subsequently 80 several times in later years [7], Sri Lanka police classifies crimes into two categories: Grave 81 crimes and Minor offences.…”