Artificial Intelligence and Law Enforcement

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States, law enforcement, and intelligence communities began efforts to combine their talents and information gathering assets to create an efficient method for sharing data. The central focus of these cooperative efforts for information dissemination was State Fusion Centers, tasked with collecting data from several database sources and distributing that information to various agencies. This vast amount of intelligence data eventually overwhelmed the investigative organizations. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the preferred technology for analyzing data to recognize behavioral patterns and create a method for the sharing of data in the fight against crime and terrorism. AI can analyze threat data and historical information and then create attack hypotheses for predicting when and where crimes will be committed. The use of AI can directly affect the cost of operations. Criminal activity locations can be predicted by AI so equipment and personnel can be directed to those areas to prevent those events from occurring. Financial resources must be allocated to allow for the development and testing of these applications so that the options available to law enforcement and the intelligence communities can be increased.