Applying visual analytics to firearms trafficking trails for the extraction of strategic intelligence

Big Data analysis and insight extraction are critical in contemporary large-scale criminal investigations. Analyzing large sets of information related to criminal activities can assist in the identification of correlations between records which can be utilized as strategic intelligence information for the coordination of law enforcement efforts. A Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) officer tasked with this analysis requires tools that can enable Big Data exploration while being intuitive and without requiring the need for prior knowledge. A common practice of data analysis software is the ability to create dashboards that can provide all the necessary visualizations and filters to support such an analysis. However, when it comes to dashboard-wide data exploration through drill-down or roll-up analysis; review and evaluation of correlations between data records; and creation of collections with information important to an investigation, current solutions fall short. In this paper, we present a system that addresses these limitations by facilitating the visualization and exploration of diverse data sources, allowing for individual or concurrent analysis via user-configured dashboards. Individual data records of interest to the analysis can be reviewed and their correlations evaluated by the user, allowing for the creation of collections of records and their relationships based on formalized types of correlations.