Knowledge based crime scenario modelling

  • Authors:

  • Jeroen Keppens;Burkhard Schafer

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, University of Wales, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, UK;School of Law, The University of Edinburgh, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, UK

  • Venue:
  • Expert Systems with Applications: An International Journal
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

A crucial concern in the evaluation of evidence related to a major crime is the formulation of sufficient alternative plausible scenarios that can explain the available evidence. However, software aimed at assisting human crime investigators by automatically constructing crime scenarios from evidence is difficult to develop because of the almost infinite variation of plausible crime scenarios. This paper introduces a novel knowledge driven methodology for crime scenario construction and it presents a decision support system based on it. The approach works by storing the component events of the scenarios instead of entire scenarios and by providing an algorithm that can instantiate and compose these component events into useful scenarios. The scenario composition approach is highly adaptable to unanticipated cases because it allows component events to match the case under investigation in many different ways. Given a description of the available evidence, it generates a network of plausible scenarios that can then be analysed to devise effective evidence collection strategies. The applicability of the ideas presented here are demonstrated by means of a realistic example and prototype decision support software.