Predicting burglary with the grid

Superheroes like Batman are not the only ones making use of high technology to combat crime. In this special all-crime-fighting issue, iSGTW looks at how e-science computing is being used.

One of the best ways to deal with crime is to prevent it from happening in the first place; witness those signs that declare “These premises monitored by closed-circuit television” in an attempt to ward off would-be criminals.

Nick Malleson, a researcher at Leeds University, UK, has taken a different tack to preventing crime. Using an intricate computer model he designed to work on the UK’s National Grid Service, he attempts to predict burglary rates, much like a meteorologist predicts the weather. Then, the police can act on his information to allocate their resources.

It may be a novel approach, but Malleson has gotten interest in his grid-based model from places as disparate as the cities of Leeds, UK, and Vancouver, Canada.

Security

Fighting money-laundering

Criminals move about $1 trillion around the world annually, trying to hide their cash’s origins. AMONG (Anti MONey laundering in Grid) seeks to stop them.

Data mining

Finding a clue in a data-stack

Thanks to distributed data analysis, the time it takes police to connect the dots between far-flung illicit activities could go from months to minutes.

Visualizing evidence

I see crime scenes

With IC-CRIME, the details of an entire crime scene can be precisely measured and recorded, using lasers coupled with high-resolution digital photography.