Criminal Analysts Research Articles

A criminal macrocause classification model: An enhancement for violent crime analysis considering an unbalanced dataset

This study introduces a novel model designed to classify macrocauses of violent crimes. The model’s practical application is demonstrated through its integration into the framework of the Natal Smart City Initiative in Brazil. Utilizing the Design Science methodology, the study details the model’s development, its subsequent implementation through a machine learning pipeline, and its assessment employing four prominent classification techniques: Decision Trees, Logistic Regression, Random Forest, and XGBoost. XGBoost performed exceptionally well, achieving an average accuracy of 0.961791, an F1-Score of 0.961410, and an AUC of ROC curve of 0.994732. Accurate classification of criminal macrocauses is crucial for developing effective public safety policies. The proposed model can provide public safety institutions and criminal analysts with a valuable tool for better understanding aspects related to violent crime analysis in their cities. This can streamline the analysis and management process and provide more accurate information for decision-making. This study also has important implications for the emerging field of smart cities. By providing a tool to assist in decision-making and planning public safety strategies, this work contributes to the development of innovative, data-based, and theory-based solutions to address urban challenges.

Nаучна заснованост криминалистичког оперативноg аналитичког сазнања

The paper looks into the scientific basis of criminalistic analytical-operational knowledge. In criminal proceedings, this type of knowledge is the basis of legal sustainability and credibility of the indictment, criminal investigation and evidence before the court, and for development of public policy in the fight against crime in modern society. The purpose of the paper is to prove that the basis of criminal operational and analytical work is intellectual activity in which the procedures of logical, meaningful, systematic and reasoned, rather than common sense of criminal analysts are strictly followed in the process of acquiring operational knowledge, which includes naming and marking criminal phenomena, processes and events and represents a logical basis for understanding the analytical process in criminalistics. In criminalistic operational-analytical research, accurate, relative and applicable knowledge is gained about a certain subject from the criminal milieu, by applying adequate criminalistic and other research methods, which fulfills two essential preconditions of this type of research, primarily the determined object of criminalistic operational research and verified methods of true or at least probable knowledge. The methodology of the research subject in this paper required the application of the operational method of document content analysis in conjunction with hypothetical-deductive and statistical methods, as well as basic analytical-synthetic methods of knowledge. The research results provided a scientifically based theoretical-methodological view of criminalistic analytics and its end product criminalistic, operational-intervention and operational-instructive knowledge that will be helpful to criminalistic and other analysts and researchers in various state institutions and organizations that have a developed criminalistic-analytical and investigative activity in their organizational structure.

Theoretical and methodological bases for the use of criminal analysis by operative units of law enforcement agencies in Ukraine

This article examines the concept, content and nature of intelligence-led policing. The role of criminal analysis, supplemented by criminal intelligence, in countering crime is examined. The specifics of interaction between operative units of law enforcement agencies and criminal analysis units are identified.
 The model of police activity guided by intelligence analytics is currently the most suitable for overcoming the existing challenges and threats in the field of fighting crime. ILP is a model of policing, according to which intelligence serves as the basis for conducting operations/investigations, and not vice versa. Criminal analysis and criminal intelligence are key elements of the Intelligence-Led Policing (ILP).
 The organization of police activities guided by ILP means the planning and management of police work activities, thanks to which the products of criminal analysis serve as the basis for determining strategic and operational goals in the field of preventing and stopping crime. This enables the effective allocation of resources based on the areas of activity of individual offenders, organised crime groups and the criminal environment as a whole.
 Criminal analysis is aimed at supporting effective law enforcement activities. The results of criminal analysis form the basis for the organization of police activities guided by intelligence analytics. That is, the products of criminal analysis serve as the basis for building the organization of police activity according to a new philosophy - a transition from reactive methods of police activity - reaction to a criminal event, to proactive - when police activity is guided by conclusions about the analysis of patterns and trends that are identified in the criminal environment. This approach allows you to take timely and effective measures regarding a problem or situation with the intention of eliminating or mitigating its consequences.
 The interaction between employees of operative units and criminal analysts has certain features and takes place mostly within the framework of criminal intelligence analysis. An important aspect in the effective cooperation of operatives and criminal analysts is the introduction of specialization in certain areas of work. Criminal analysis is aimed at supporting effective law enforcement activities. The results of criminal analysis form the basis for the organization of police activities guided by intelligence analytics. That is, the products of criminal analysis serve as the basis for building the organization of police activity according to a new philosophy - a transition from reactive methods of police activity - reaction to a criminal event, to proactive - when police activity is guided by conclusions about the analysis of patterns and trends that are identified in the criminal environment. This approach allows you to take timely and effective measures regarding a problem or situation with the intention of eliminating or mitigating its consequences.
 The interaction between employees of operative units and criminal analysts has certain features and takes place mostly within the framework of criminal intelligence analysis. An important aspect in the effective cooperation of operatives and criminal analysts is the introduction of specialization in certain areas of work.

ТРЕНІНГОВИЙ ПІДХІД У РОЗВИТКУ КРЕАТИВНОГО МИСЛЕННЯ КРИМІНАЛЬНИХ АНАЛІТИКІВ ОПЕРАТИВНО-РОЗШУКОВИХ ПІДРОЗДІЛІВ

Стаття присвячена аналізу теоретичних основ та методології тренінгу розвитку креативного мислення кримінальних аналітиків оперативно-розшукових підрозділів. Викладені матеріали обґрунтовують необхідність розвитку та вдосконалення креативності як складової професійного становлення цієї категорії оперативних працівників. Розглянутий тренінговий підхід у підготовці кримінальних аналітиків дозволяє розвинути уявлення щодо розробки психотренінгової програми розвитку креативного мислення з акцентом на групову взаємодію й особистісне зростання, усвідомлення та подолання бар’єрів вияву креативності, усвідомлення характеристик креативної середовища, формування навичок та вмінь управління креативним процесом, а також на розвиток швидкості, гнучкості й оригінальності креативного мислення.

The Institute of Staff Criminologists (Criminal Analysts): Foreign Experience and Prospects of Its Introduction in the System of Crime Prevention in the Russian Federation

The authors examine the possibilities of the criminological analysis of criminal situation and show the value of using modern information systems to analyze and predict crimes for the improvement of the crime prevention work of internal affairs’ bodies. They study the analytical methods that make crime prevention more productive and the key software used for criminal analysis. The article presents the results of studying the work of criminal analysts in various legal systems (the UK, the USA, Canada, South Korea, New Zealand). It contains the data of an experts’ survey conducted in June 2017. The experts were 100 employees of investigation departments, centers of counteracting extremism, economic security and corruption counteraction, employees of organization and analytical departments of the Chief Directorate of Russian Ministry of the Interior in Moscow and Moscow Region. The analysis of the work of criminal analysts in other countries and the results of the survey of experts from law enforcement bodies are used to determine the prospects of introducing the institute of staff criminologists in the crime prevention system of the Russian Federation, to develop an algorithm of criminological support in Russian internal affairs’ bodies and to outline the prospective spheres of work for staff criminologists (criminal analysts). The authors conclude that the effectiveness of the work of Russian internal affairs’ bodies on the prevention, suppression and detection of crimes could be considerably improved through the introduction of modern means and methods of criminal analysis that are currently actively used by the police of some countries. They present a conceptually new approach to the criminological support of the work of internal affairs’ bodies based on the cumulative analysis of the current legislative base of the Russian Federation, the existing theoretical approaches and the experience of organizing the work of criminal analysts in other countries. The authors express their confidence that quality and professional work of using means and methods of crime prediction could help optimize the use of available resources and authority of law enforcement bodies and, consequently, either reduce the costs of law enforcement or use the available budgets more effectively.

A descriptive, practical, hybrid argumentation model to assist with the formulation of defensible assessments in uncertain sense-making environments: an initial evaluation

This paper presents the preliminary results of our initial, descriptive, practical, hybrid argumentation model, designed for the use by criminal intelligence analysts (from now on referred to as analysts) working with sophisticated visual analytical software in uncertain sense-making environments. Analysts are required to create exhibits (as evidence) for a court of law or as input for decision-making in intelligence-led policing. These exhibits are required to be accurate, relevant and unbiased. Eight experienced criminal intelligence analysts from West Midlands police and the Belgium police evaluated a low-fidelity prototype resembling the first-order argumentation concepts of our initial argumentation model. The evaluation was to assess the applicability and practicality of the first-order argumentation concepts within our model. The preliminary results presented in this paper indicate that most of the first-order argumentation concepts are both applicable and practical and that the participants would use such concepts to construct their rationale from the onset of an analytical activity, if it were included as part of a software application.

Making machine intelligence less scary for criminal analysts: reflections on designing a visual comparative case analysis tool

A fundamental task in criminal intelligence analysis is to analyze the similarity of crime cases, called comparative case analysis (CCA), to identify common crime patterns and to reason about unsolved crimes. Typically, the data are complex and high dimensional and the use of complex analytical processes would be appropriate. State-of-the-art CCA tools lack flexibility in interactive data exploration and fall short of computational transparency in terms of revealing alternative methods and results. In this paper, we report on the design of the Concept Explorer, a flexible, transparent and interactive CCA system. During this design process, we observed that most criminal analysts are not able to understand the underlying complex technical processes, which decrease the users’ trust in the results and hence a reluctance to use the tool. Our CCA solution implements a computational pipeline together with a visual platform that allows the analysts to interact with each stage of the analysis process and to validate the result. The proposed visual analytics workflow iteratively supports the interpretation of the results of clustering with the respective feature relations, the development of alternative models, as well as cluster verification. The visualizations offer an understandable and usable way for the analyst to provide feedback to the system and to observe the impact of their interactions. Expert feedback confirmed that our user-centered design decisions made this computational complexity less scary to criminal analysts.

Cassiopeia – Towards a Distributed and Composable Crawling Platform

When it comes to designing and implementing crawling systems or Internet robots, it is of the utmost importance to first address efficiency and scalability issues (from a technical and architectural point of view), due to the enormous size and unimaginable structural complexity of the World Wide Web. There are, however, a significant number of users for whom flexibility and ease of execution are as important as efficiency. Running, defining, and composing Internet robots and crawlers according to dynamically-changing requirements and use-cases in the easiest possible way (e.g. in a graphical, drag & drop manner) is necessary especially for criminal analysts. The goal of this paper is to present the idea, design, crucial architectural elements, Proof-of-Concept (PoC) implementation, and preliminary experimental assessment of Cassiopeia framework, i.e. an all-in-one studio addressing both of the above-mentioned aspects.

A Collaborative Epidemiological Investigation into the Criminal Fake Artesunate Trade in South East Asia

BackgroundSince 1998 the serious public health problem in South East Asia of counterfeit artesunate, containing no or subtherapeutic amounts of the active antimalarial ingredient, has led to deaths from untreated malaria, reduced confidence in this vital drug, large economic losses for the legitimate manufacturers, and concerns that artemisinin resistance might be engendered.Methods and FindingsWith evidence of a deteriorating situation, a group of police, criminal analysts, chemists, palynologists, and health workers collaborated to determine the source of these counterfeits under the auspices of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) and the Western Pacific World Health Organization Regional Office. A total of 391 samples of genuine and counterfeit artesunate collected in Vietnam (75), Cambodia (48), Lao PDR (115), Myanmar (Burma) (137) and the Thai/Myanmar border (16), were available for analysis. Sixteen different fake hologram types were identified. High-performance liquid chromatography and/or mass spectrometry confirmed that all specimens thought to be counterfeit (195/391, 49.9%) on the basis of packaging contained no or small quantities of artesunate (up to 12 mg per tablet as opposed to ∼ 50 mg per genuine tablet). Chemical analysis demonstrated a wide diversity of wrong active ingredients, including banned pharmaceuticals, such as metamizole, and safrole, a carcinogen, and raw material for manufacture of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (‘ecstasy'). Evidence from chemical, mineralogical, biological, and packaging analysis suggested that at least some of the counterfeits were manufactured in southeast People's Republic of China. This evidence prompted the Chinese Government to act quickly against the criminal traders with arrests and seizures.ConclusionsAn international multi-disciplinary group obtained evidence that some of the counterfeit artesunate was manufactured in China, and this prompted a criminal investigation. International cross-disciplinary collaborations may be appropriate in the investigation of other serious counterfeit medicine public health problems elsewhere, but strengthening of international collaborations and forensic and drug regulatory authority capacity will be required.

Development of a Computer-Based Program for Criminal Intelligence Analysis

Criminal intelligence is a law-enforcement function that supports investigators, decision-makers, and policy-makers in their attempt to prevent and control crime. This paper describes recent efforts to enhance the capability of criminal intelligence analysts through the development and implementation of computer-based routines. The intelligence analysis cycle is defined, analytical concepts are discussed, and the development, features, and operation of the Organized Crime Analysis Program(*OCAP*) are described.