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Collaborative Workflow Management for

Interagency Crime Analysis

J. Leon Zhao, Henry H. Bi, and Hsinchun Chen

Department of MIS

University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721

{lzhao, hbi, hchen}@bpa.arizona.edu

2Zhao, Bi, & Chen, University of Arizona

Outline

Motivation

Need for Collaborative Workflow in Crime Analysis

Collaborative Workflow for Interagency Crime Analysis

Interagency Crime Analysis Framework

Event-Based Workflow and Event Management Language

Summary

3Zhao, Bi, & Chen, University of Arizona

Motivation DHS is the organizational means to strengthen

collaboration among law enforcement agencies

Presently, most crime analysis is data centric, and little

support for collaboration

Need to improve the information flow and access among

law enforcement agencies

Collaborative workflow is an emerging technology that

can help interagency crime analysis

4Zhao, Bi, & Chen, University of Arizona

Crime Analysis: A Field Study

We have conducted a field study with a major police

department.

We interviewed patrol officers, crime analysts, and

detectives over an one year period.

We also collected sample documents and observed

knowledge intensive law enforcement processes.

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Crime Analysis: Key Findings

Law enforcement work is knowledge intensive.

Police officers spend up to 40% time handling information.

Many detection failures in police work are due to

necessary information is not exchanged properly.

Most existing police search systems are deployed by

individual agencies at the regional, state, & national level.

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Crime Analysis: Knowledge Processes

1. Collecting crime data

2. Processing and storing crime data and

documents

3. Searching, retrieving, and collecting additional

information or crime analysis

4. Analyzing information to find clues

5. Using information to prosecute criminals

7Zhao, Bi, & Chen, University of Arizona

Need for Collaborative Workflow Support

Four types of deficiencies in crime analysis

1. Crime analysis is to search many data sources and then

piece together scattered information.

2. Many of the crime analysis steps are non-automated.

3. Lots of forms need to be completed repeatedly.

4. Many cases may be implicitly related, but are hidden

from crime analysts.

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A Model for Collaborative Workflow

1. Workflow identification

2. Workflow negotiation

3. Event-based workflow design• Event definition

• Event dependency specification

• Deadline specification and verification

4. Workflow Initialization

5. Event-based workflow execution• Event execution

• Event modification

6. Workflow termination

Not supported by currentworkflow

technology

9Zhao, Bi, & Chen, University of Arizona

Unified Case Language System:

To support for discovering similarities among crime cases

Interagency Crime Analysis Framework

Collaborative Workflow Management System:

to manage event-based collaborative workflows

National Crime Case Repository:

to store crime cases that are in need of collaborators

10Zhao, Bi, & Chen, University of Arizona

Interagency Crime Analysis System

Agency 2

agent ISi info system i

Interagency Crime Analysis Workflow System

. . .

Agency 1Agency n

IS1IS2 ISn

SOAP connection

11Zhao, Bi, & Chen, University of Arizona

A Workflow Event Language

A workflow event is an action item that must be

completed by one or more agents on or before a

specified time.

We denote event e to be completed by agent a

by time t as e(a, t).

The event start time is unspecified beforehand.

Time t of event e is the deadline.

Agent a can also be a set of agents.

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Event Examples

Event Description Agents Deadline Prereq.

E1 Collect data from Tucson Agencies John, Sarah 5 pm 1/10 None

E2 Collect data from CIA Tom 5 pm 1/10 None

E3 Collect data from FBI Mike 5 pm 1/10 None

E4 Teleconference meeting All agents 2 pm 1/11 E1, E2, E3

E5 Compile meeting minutes & email to all Jen 7 pm 1/11 E4

E6 Review findings & prosecution actions John, Mike 5 pm 1/15 E5

E7 Prepare prosecution forms & email to all Sarah 11 am 1/17 E6

E8 Final teleconference All agents 5 pm 1/18 E7

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Relationships between events

The relationships between two events can be

prerequisite, subsequent, and irrelevant.

If event e1 must be completed before event e2,

then e1 is a prerequisite of e2, we say e1 e2.

Further, e2 is a subsequent event of e1.

When multiple events e1, e2, e3 are prerequisites

of event e4, it is written as {e1, e2, e3} e4.

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Event Dependency Example

E1({John, Sarah}, ‘5 pm 1/10/03’) E2(Tom, ‘5 pm 1/10/03’) E3(Mike, ‘5 pm 1/10/03’) E4({John, Sarah, Tom, Mike, Jen}, ‘2 pm 1/11/03’) E5(Jen, ‘7 pm 1/11/03’) E6({John, Mike}, ‘5 pm 1/15/03’) E7(Sarah, ‘11 am 1/17/03’) E8({John, Sarah, Tom, Mike, Jen}, ‘5 pm 1/18/03’)

The dependency constraints:{E1,E2,E3}E4, E4E5, E5E6, E6E7,

E7E8

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Contributions

Studied the need in the field for collaborative

workflow management in police knowledge work.

Proposed a national crime case repository to enable

discovery of collaborators on specific crime cases.

Designed an interagency crime analysis framework

and a workflow design and execution model.

Proposed an event-based workflow method and the

associated event manipulation language.

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Ongoing Work

Develop the algorithms for the interagency

crime analysis framework

Implement the algorithms by integrating

workflow with knowledge management

Validate the value of collaborative workflow in

a law enforcement environment