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 Research Goal  

To integrate law enforcement databases in a single web-based interface and to support intelligence analysis.

Law enforcement personnel need access to a large, and currently disparate set of data sources to perform effectively. Currently, if access exists at all, inconsistencies between systems make these systems extremely difficult to use. COPLINK provides a consistent and intuitive web-based interface that integrates different data sources. The multiplicity of data sources remains completely transparent, while law enforcement personnel learn a single, easy to use interface.

Knowledge-based databases generated directly from multiple data sources provide large-scale intelligence analysis capabilities, including the identification of previously unknown relationships.

Because of the sensitive nature of the COPLINK data, real time demos cannot be shown. Any examples or images that contain legible names and addresses are completely fictitious and are only used to provide an example of the capabilities of COPLINK.

 Funding  
Funding for this research was received from the following sources:

NSF/CIA 2004-2005
(PI: Chen) $150,000
"A Data Mining Framework for Deception Detection,"
 
NSF 2004-2006
(PIs: Chen, Atabakhsh) $600,000
"COPLINK Center: Social Network Analysis and Identify Deception Detection for Law Enforcement and Homeland Security,"
 
DHS / CNRI: Sept. 2003 - Nov. 2004.
BorderSafe Phase 1: $550,000 Oct. 1 2003 – Sept. 30, 2004
BorderSafe Phase 2: $585, 000 June 1, 2004 – March 31, 2005
 
NSF, ITR Sept. 1, 2003 - Aug. 31, 2004.
"COPLINK Center for Intelligence and Security Informatics Research - "A Crime Data Mining Approach to Developing Border Safe Research."
 
# 9983304 Apr, 2003 - Jan, 2005
National Science Foundation (NSF) $752,000
"NSF/CIA KDD ARJIS/Coplink "Border Safe" Research and Testbed"
# 9983304 Jul, 2000 - Jun,2003
National Science Foundation (NSF) $1,600,000
"COPLINK Center: Information and Knowledge Management for Law Enforcement"
97-LB-VX-K023 October 1997 - September 1999
Tucson Police Department/sub - National Institute of Justice $941,887
"COPLINK: Database Integration and Access for a Law Enforcement Intranet"
April, 2000 - July, 2000
$55,000
COPLINK: Concept Space for Intelligence Analysis at TPD
#US-1998004  
Compaq Computer Corporation External Technology Grants Program $198,451

 Acknowledgements  
 

National Science Foundation,
NSF, Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination (KDD) # 9983304, June 2003-March 2004 and October 2003 - March 2004.

NSF, ITR: "COPLINK Center for Intelligence and Security Informatics Research - "A Crime Data Mining Approach to Developing Border Safe Research." Sept. 1, 2003 - Aug. 31, 2004.

Digital Government Program, COPLINK Center: Information and Knowledge Management for Law Enforcement, # 9983304, July, 2000-June, 2003.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Corporation for National Research
Initiatives (CNRI): "Border Safe," Oct. 1, 2003 - March 31, 2005.

National Institute of Justice, COPLINK: Database Integration and Access for a Law Enforcement Intranet, July 1997-January 2000.

We would like to thank The Tucson Police Department for its support and collaboration in the COPLINK project.

We would like to thank The Phoenix Police Department for its support and collaboration in the COPLINK project.

We would like to thank the Compaq Computer Corporation External Technology Grants Program, agreement #US-1998004, for their award of a $198,451 equipment grant allowance toward the purchase of a DECAlpha Server for the COPLINK project.

We would like to thank Customs and Border Protection, Tucson for their support and collaboration.

 Approach & Methodology  
Testbed:

    Tucson Police Department

    Phoenix Police Department

    Pima County Sheriff's Department

    Tucson Customs and Border Protection

 Team Members  
 
   Dr. Hsinchun Chen hchen@eller.arizona.edu
   Dr. Homa Atabakhsh homa@eller.arizona.edu
   Dr. Daniel Zeng zeng@eller.arizona.edu
   Sgt. Chuck Violette chuck.violette@tucsonaz.gov
   Det. Tim Peterson tpeters1@ci.tucson.az.us
   Dan Casey dcasey1@ci.tucson.az.us
   Jason Jiexun Li jiexun@eller.arizona.edu
   Jennifer Jie Xu jxu@bpa.arizona.edu
   Gang Wang gang@u.arizona.edu
   Siddharth Kaza sidd@u.arizona.edu
   Byron Marshall byronm@eller.arizona.edu
   Shauna Eggers seggers@email.arizona.edu
   Ankit Shah ankit@cs.arizona.edu
   Hemanth Gowda  

 Publications  
  1. H. Atabakhsh, C. Larson, T. Petersen, C. Violette, and H. Chen, "Information sharing and collaboration policies within government agencies," at 2nd Symposium on Intelligence and Security Informatics, June 10-11 2004, Tucson, AZ, 2004.

  2. G. Wang, H. Chen, and H. Atabakhsh, "Automatically Detecting Deceptive Criminal Identities," Communications of the ACM, 47(3): 70-76, March 2004

  3. G. Wang, H. Chen, H. Atabakhsh, “Criminal Identity Deception and Deception Detection in Law Enforcement,” Group Decision and Negotiation, Special Issues on Deception, 13(2): 111-127, March 2004.

  4. H. Chen, W. Chung, J. Xu, G. Wang, M. Chau and Y. Qin, “Crime Data Mining: A General Framework and Some Examples,” IEEE Computer; accepted for publication, forthcoming.

  5. Jennifer J. Xu*, Hsinchun Chen, "Criminal Network Analysis and Visualization: A Data Mining Perspective" Forthcoming article accepted for publication in Communications of the ACM

  6. Jennifer J. Xu*, Hsinchun Chen, "Fighting organized crimes: using shortest-path algorithms to identify associations in criminal networks" Forthcoming article accepted for publication in Decision Support Systems (DSS)

  7. Gang Wang, Hsinchun, and Homa Atabakhsh, " Automatically Detecting Deceptive Criminal Identities" Communications of the ACM, March 2004/Vol. 47, No. 3, Pages 71-76

  8. H. Chen, D. Zeng, H. Atabakhsh, W. Wyzga, and J. Schroeder
    COPLINK Managing Law Enforcement Data and Knowledge
    Communications of the ACM
    pages 28-34, Volume 46, Number 1, January 2003
     
  9. H. Chen, J. Schroeder, R. Hauck, L. Ridgeway, H. Atabakhsh, H. Gupta, C. Boarman, K. Rasmussen and A. Clements
    COPLINK Connect: information and knowledge management for law enforcement
    Decision Support Systems (DSS), Special Issue "Digital Government: technologies and practices"
    pages 271-285, Volume 34, Number 3, February 2003
  10. Ty Buetow, Luis Chaboya, Christopher O’Toole, Tom Cushna, Damien Daspit, Tim Petersen, Homa Atabakhsh, Hsinchun Chen.
    A Spatio Temporal Visualizer for Law Enforcement.
    First NSF/NIJ Symposium on Intelligence and Security Informatics. Tucson AZ, June 2003.
  11. H. Chen, H. Atabakhsh, D. Zeng, J. Schroeder, T., Petersen, D. Casey, M. Chen, Y. Xiang, D. Daspit, S. Nandiraju, S. Fu
    COPLINK: Visualization and Collaboration for Law Enforcement.
    Proceedings of the National Conference on Digital Government, May 20-22, 2002, Los Angeles, CA.
     
  12. R. Hauck, H. Atabakhsh, P. Onguasith, H. Gupta, H. Chen
    Using Coplink to Analyse Criminal-Justice Data
    IEEE Computer, pages 30-37, Volume 35, March 2002
     
  13. J. Martinez, A. Moosman
    Report of COPLINK Detect User Study
    August 2002
     
  14. Homa Atabakhsh, Jennifer Schroeder, Hsinchun Chen, Michael Chau, Jennifer
    Jie Xie, Jing Zhang, Haidong Bi.
    COPLINK Knowledge Management for Law Enforcement: Text Analysis, Visualization and Collaboration.
    National Conference on Digital Government. May 2001, Los Angeles CA.
     
  15. Michael Chau, Homa Atabakhsh, Daniel Zeng, Hsinchun Chen.
    Building an Infrastructure for Law Enforcement Information Sharing and Collaboration: Design Issues and Challenges.
    National Conference on Digital Government. May 2001, Los Angeles CA.
     
  16. Hsinchun Chen
    Coplink: A National Model for Law Enforcement Information Sharing and Knowledge Management
    Coplink Center Workshop: Law Enforcement Information Sharing and Analysis:
    Technologies and Practices for the 21st Century, January 2001
     
  17. Rosie Hauck and Jenny Schroeder
    COPLINK: A Collaboration of Research and Application for Law Enforcement
    Coplink Center Workshop: Law Enforcement Information Sharing and Analysis:
    Technologies and Practices for the 21st Century, January 2001
     
  18. H. Chen, R. V. Hauck, H. Atabakhsh, H. Gupta, C. Boarmana, J Schroeder, L. Ridgeway
    COPLINK: Information and Knowledge Management for Law Enforcement
    Photonics East Conference, SPIE, Technologies for Law Enforcement; Boston Nov. 5-8, 2000
     
  19. "NIJ Presentation 2000: COPLINK Overview"
    April, 2000

  20. Boarman, Christopher
    "Coplink: Database Deployment(ppt)"
    "Coplink: Refreshment Subsystem Design(ppt)"
    April, 2000

  21. Jennifer Schroeder, Hsinchun Chen, Homa Atabakhsh, Emily Werner, Shantel Ekman, Harsh Gupta, Rosie V. Hauck, David Hendriawan, Chris Boarman
    "NIJ Presentation 1999"
    October 20, 1999

  22. Hauck, Rosie V.
    "Coplink: Exploring Usability of a Multimedia Database Application for Law Enforcement(pdf)"
    October 20, 1999

  23. Jennifer Schroeder, Hsinchun Chen, Hauck, Rosie V.
    "NIJ Final Proposal(abstract)"
    "NIJ Final Proposal"
    September, 1999

  24. Hauck, Rosie V. and Dr. Chen, Hsinchun
    "Coplink: A Case of Intelligent Analysis and Knowledge Management(pdf)"
    "Coplink: A Case of Intelligent Analysis and Knowledge Management(ppt)"
    International Conference on Information Systems '99

  25. Sochan, John T. and Chen, Hsinchun
    "Tucson Police Department COPLINK Mobile Computing Technology Assessment"

  26. Sochan, John T.
    "CDPD Demonstration Plan for a Tucson Police Department Web-Based Mobile Computing Application"
    August 22, 1997

  27. B. Schatz, H. Chen
    "Building Large-Scale Digital Libraries(pdf)"
    IEEE Computer
    May, 1996

  28. K. Lynch, F. Rodgers
    "Development of Integrated Criminal Justice Expert System Applications"
    Journal of Forensic Identification
    Volume 39, Number 5, 1989

   NEWS ITEMS

 
  1. Software Helps Police Draw Crime Links
    "Coplink," the program sifts through tens of millions of police records, from 911 calls to homicide investigations, to deliver a short list of potential leads in just seconds.
    The Boston Globe
    July 17, 2003

  2. ‘Google’ for Cops
    Software helps police search for cyber clues to bust criminals.
    ABC News
    April 15, 2003

  3. Crime: A Google for Cops
    A computerized way for police to coordinate crime databases.
    Newsweek Magazine
    March 3, 2003

  4. The PTI Technology Award
    Coplink project receives "The PTI Technology Award" in the public safety category for mid-size cities.
    Public Technology, INC.
    January, 2003

  5. "Data Miners"
    Americans got a glimpse of how such a system might work this fall during the Washington-sniper investigation. Two weeks into the shootings, Knowledge Computing, an Arizona company whose COPLINK system has integrated police databases.
    Time Magazine Global Business Supplement
    December 23, 2002

  6. "Coplink,"
    an artificial-intelligence–driven search engine for crime characteristics, scans multiple databases for connections among names, vehicles, physical descriptions, and other aspects of a crime or criminal .
    PC Magazine
    December 17, 2002

  7. "A Sherlock Holmes for the Internet Age"
    Content in Chinese.
    Life Week Magazine
    November 18, 2002

  8. "A Missing Link Most Wanted"
    Linking facts in the sniper case will be a big test of what Coplink can do. Just for this project, all information from Maryland, the District and Virginia and from federal databases such as the FBI's Rapidstart is being collected in a single, searchable data file.
    The Washington Post
    November 7, 2002

  9. "An Electronic Cop That Plays Hunches"
    It is an Internet-based system called Coplink, developed at an artificial intelligence laboratory, that allows police departments to establish links quickly among their own files and to those of other departments.
    The New York Times
    November 2, 2002

  10. "Tucson Cops, local software to help in D.C. sniper probe"
    A computer database system that Tucson police employ in crime investigations will be used in the hunt for the Washington, D.C.-area sniper or snipers.
    Tucson Citizen
    October 23, 2002

  11. "Sniper probe to get help from Tucson"
    A program developed by the University of Arizona will be used to try to capture the Washington, D.C., area sniper.
    Arizona Daily Star
    October 23, 2002

  12. "Regional Information Sharing Project for Huntsville, Texas Law Enforcement Agencies"
    The city of Huntsville, TX recently granted a contract to implement COPLINK, a law enforcement records-sharing tool, in an initiative to improve Community Oriented Policing.
    The Innovation Groups
    March, 2002

  13. "KM ‘aids and abets’ law enforcement"
    Law enforcement is an information-intensive process, beginning with data collection at crime scenes and extending through records management and analysis of data to support crime-solving.
    KMWorld
    Vol 11, Issue 3, March, 2002

  14. "Super Detective"
    When University of Arizona professor Hsinchun Chen combined police databases for a consortium of city police agencies, a super-detective was born.
    DG Online
    December, 2001

  15. Fischer, Alan
    COPLINK nabs criminals faster.
     Arizona Daily Star
    January 7, 2001
     
  16. "Changing the Rules of the Game: How CopLink is Helping Police Departments Match Evidence Across Boundaries of Time and Space "
    Federal Computer Week news
    April, 2000

  17. "New Computer Program Improves Information Sharing of Criminal Cases Between Law Enforcement Agencies"
    Justice Bulletin, National Criminal Justice Association
    December, 1999

     

  18. "Coplink: Database Detective"
    National Law Enforcement and Correction Center, Tech Beat
    Summer, 1999

 
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