Criminal network analysis with interactive strategies: A proof of concept study using mobile call logs

Abstract

The communication data are becoming increasingly important for criminal network analysis nowadays, this data provides a digital trace which can be regarded as a hidden clue to support the crack of criminal cases. Additionally, performing a timely and effective analysis on it can predict criminal intents and take efficient actions to restrain and prevent crimes. The primary work of our research is to suggest an analytical process with interactive strategies as a solution to the problem of characterizing criminal groups constructed from the communication data. It is expected to assist law enforcement agencies in the task of discovering the potential suspects and exploring the underlying structures of criminal network hidden behind the communication data. This process allows for network analysis with commonly used metrics to identify the core members. It permits exploration and visualization of the network in the goal of improving the comprehension of interesting microstructures. Most importantly, it also allows to extract community structures in a appropriate level with the label supervision strategy. Our work concludes illustrating the application of our interactive strategies to a real world criminal investigation with mobile call logs.