CitadelPolice: An Interactive Visualization Environment for Scenario Testing on Criminal Networks

Abstract

Criminal networks have proven to be highly resilient against law enforcement interventions. This resiliency has driven researchers to investigate these networks further. However, the obtained insights reaching law enforcement agencies are generally highly case-dependent or extremely general. Therefore, CitadelPolice aims to provide an environment for visualizing criminal network models on a comprehensive and interactive dashboard. The main advantage of CitadelPolice is that it allows law enforcement to independently test specific scenarios and discover the most effective disruption strategy before deploying it. To achieve this, we used a computational network model based on collaboration with and data from the Dutch Police Force, named the Criminal Cocaine Replacement Model and implemented this on a web-based graph visualization and simulation tool named Citadel. Using this, we can interactively visualize the network while running simulations. To test the effectiveness of the network visualization and implementation of the model, we performed sequential usability testing and compared the results over time.