Data Mining and Predictive Analytics in Public Safety and Security

Used for many years in the business community, data mining and predictive analytics are finding new roles in areas outside business - like the law enforcement. Crime and criminal behavior, including the most aberrant or heinous crimes, frequently can be categorized and modeled, a characteristics used successfully in the apprehension of serial killers and child predators, as well as drug dealers, robbers, and thieves. Therefore data mining and predictive analytics are rapidly gaining acceptance and use in the applied public safety, security, and intelligence setting given their ability to process large data sets and identify actionable patterns and trends. In particular, the areas of force deployment and homeland security have emerged as early adopters of this technology