Hiding in plain sight: criminal network analysis
The United States is faced with an increasingly complex criminal enterprise. Advances in technology, communications, transport, and economies enable a highly adaptive criminal element to hide in plain site. These advances provide criminal organizations with the same global boundaries and opportunities as legitimate organizations. As boundaries expand the data to be analyzed by law enforcement mounts at a geometrically astounding rate. In response, the nature of law enforcement intelligence analysis must evolve to cope with both the amount and complexity of the data. This requires new and adaptive methods of analysis. Researchers have found that the principles of network analysis can be applied to the analysis of terrorist and criminal organizations. This paper examines the combination of measures historically employed by intelligence analysts and network analysis software and methodologies to quantitatively and qualitatively examine criminal organizations.
criminal network analysis law enforcement social network analysis dynamic network analysis ora hidtasis