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Applicants: 1. Arvind Verma, Assoc Prof, Criminal Justice; [email protected], 812-855-0220 2. Suresh Marru, Staff- Computer Science; [email protected], 812-855-4081 Project title: Analyzing Somali Piracy through Computer Simulation DESCRIPTION OF INTENDED WORK Computational criminology is emerging as a new inter-disciplinary field that applies computer science and mathematical methods to the study of criminological problems. The complexity of human behavior, social interactions and law and society parameters present extraordinary challenges to model criminal behavior and determine the best possible means to control it. Although, some form of mathematics, largely statistics has been used by criminologists for their data analysis but the applications have been affected by the limitations of crime data. There is dispute about the nature of crime and official data is considered biased and shaped by organizational factors. Furthermore, the dark figure of crime [unreported crime] is believed to be much larger than official records. All these restrict ways of conducting quantitative data analysis in criminology. Nevertheless, in recent years developments in the new field of computational criminology are promising innovative techniques of analyzing criminal behavior and exploring solutions to deal with them (Eck and Liu 2008). Theories of Environmental Criminology (Brantingham & Brantingham 1991), Routine Activity Approach (Cohen & Felson 1979) and Rational Choice (Clarke & Felson 1993) have helped developed methods of geographical profiling that utilize the concept of distance decay to track offender movement in a given space. It is well known, for example that offenders make a rational choice in weighing the risks of an expected reward before embarking on their act. Moreover, they tend to operate in known areas where they have the knowledge of opportunities and escape routes. Using this model a technique known as geographical profiling analyzes the areas where crimes are committed and works backwards to create probability spaces from where the offender is likely to operate. Geographical profiling has been successfully applied in serial crimes and has emerged as a powerful tool for the investigation and prevention of crime (Rossmo 1999). This project seeks to apply these criminological concepts to the study of Somali pirates who are active in the sea lanes around the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Although piracy around Somalia has been reported since the early 1990s it has only been in the last 2-3 years that it has taken a menacing dimension and brought world attention to the problem. The Gulf of Aden is one of the busiest sea routes providing the pirates a lucrative opportunity to target commercial ships and collect ransom from their owners. Reportedly, $150 million has been collected as booty in the last year alone. Although, patrolling by navies of the US, India and some other nations has commenced it remains ineffective due to the vast expanse of water and thousands of unescorted ships providing easy targets. The pirates have also begun moving south and targeting the ships sailing on the eastern coast of Africa, thus expanding their areas of operations. This threat is so serious that United Nations is contemplating a peacekeeping sea navy for the area. However, the unsettled conditions in Somalia provide the pirates not only hiding places but also strong bases to plan and execute their operations. The modus operandi of the pirates is simple- use a fast speed boat to roam the seas and target a commercial ship using small arms and grenade launchers. Since all crews are unarmed they are unable to offer any resistance to the forcible take over of their ship and fall an easy prey. The pirates are then able to hold them as hostages, demand ransom money and escape without fear of serious confrontation. It has only been an occasional intervention by some navy ship that has thwarted these plans. Otherwise, the pirates have successfully collected ransom from a large number of merchant ships. The Somali piracy crimes have several dimensions that form the modus operandi of the act. The pirates operate from fishing villages dotted near the sea coast with facilities to launch small and big boats. The boats are another factor. Earlier they were using small motor propelled fishing boats scouting few miles off the shore. These skiffs were too slow so pirates began capturing trawlers and small freighters for use as mother ships to venture deep into the sea. These larger boats can drag a couple of skiffs and house 10-15 pirates on board. These mother ships lie low waiting for merchant ships to come close when skiffs are launched to capture the targets. The large numbers of ships using these seas for the shortest route to the Suez Canal provide easy targets. The merchants ships travel fast but cannot overrun the smaller faster skiffs used by the pirates. Moreover, the pirates use GPS and radars to locate and track the movement of merchant ships and attack at opportune moments. This project aims to model the criminal activities and movement of the pirates using the concepts of Environmental Criminology and the above mentioned parameters forming the modus operandi of the pirates. The criminological theory not only provides the context but also means to test the validity of the simulated model. The data for the project will come from open sources [such as UNOSAT_Piracy_Gulf-Aden; IMB Piracy Reporting Center 2009] that provide elaborate details of the pirate attacks in the past few years. The number of incidents and geographical coordinates available from these sources provide sufficient information to test a computational system that simulates the incidents. We propose to begin with a grid representing the latitude and longitude coordinates of the affected region. One part of the grid will mark the fishing villages scattered along the coastline and the other the ‘corridor’ where ship movement takes place. The parameters of speed for the merchant ship and the skiff boats, the fuel capacity and unobtrusive prowling by the ‘mother ship’ that determines the range of operations before returning to the base will provide the variables to model the movement pattern of the pirate boats and merchant ships and identify the probability spaces most likely to be affected by the pirates. The model will also estimate the time period in which the merchant ship can summon help from the patrolling Navy boats or outrun the pirates. The spots where the pirate boats interact with the merchant ship will be counted as ‘Hits’ and the results of some 10000 runs will help identify the hot spots of attacks and probability spaces of vulnerable areas. We will add the factor of Navy patrols to ‘deter’ these attacks within a varying radius based upon their random movement in the grid. That is, if the Navy patrols are within a set distance the pirate attack will be deterred. This simulation will be presented on a visual graphic that will display the originating base, the movement of pirate boats and the merchant ships and finally the ‘hits’ where the two will interact in the absence of Navy patrols. The mean coordinates of hot spots [high probability areas] of these hits will be collected in a database which will be compared to the real mean data coordinates using a simple Goodness of Fit statistics. This simulation will be a self improving iterative model that will vary different variables of base locations, speed and range of operations, random movement of the mother ship and Navy patrol boats to obtain the best possible fit to the real data. WHY THIS MATTERS? The project models the crime of piracy off the Somali coast which is a current ongoing problem for the world. Thus, not only does it address a serious criminal activity but also provides tests of several hypotheses that can aid the investigators to locate the pirate bases and take preventive measures. Furthermore, this will provide the foundation for applying similar simulation models to other criminal activities like terrorism in the mountains of Afghanistan and illegal migration across the Mexican border and even predatory crimes in urban environment. Where ever geography is an important dimension for criminal activities similar simulated modeling will be able to provide insight into the movement of offenders as also ways of investigating and preventing these crimes. PROPOSED COLLABORATION This project is collaboration between Dr Arvind Verma of the Department of Criminal Justice, Suresh Marru, [staff] and graduate students from the Departments of Computer Science & Criminal Justice. The direct benefit of this project will be an innovative simulation model to analyze piracy around Somalia and develop its preventive measures. An expected outcome is to develop a prototype that can help in obtaining a larger grant from the National Institute of Justice as well as the National Science Foundation and other agencies for a comprehensive study of piracy around Somalia and other places. However, a major impact of the project will be to set the foundation of Computational Criminology at IU. A long term partnership between the School of Informatics and the Department of Criminology will help utilize computer science concepts such as algorithms, data mining, data structures and software development to understand the crime phenomenon and evolve methods of controlling it. A variety of projects concerned with epidemiological studies of crime, disease, economic activities and political mobilization are likely to evolve from such simulation models of complex social processes. The project has the potential of bringing together criminologists, computer scientists, geographers and mathematicians to create a new research enterprise inquiring into the complex social problems using a variety of computational and mathematical methods. FUTURE FUNDING PROSPECTS A developed prototype of this project and similar ones based on computational criminology are likely to attract the interests of the National Institute of Justice [NIJ] and the National Science Foundation which provides funds under the subject of Human Social Dynamics Program. Significantly, the NIJ has announced forthcoming solicitations [see http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/funding/forthcoming.htm] for: Criminal Justice Technology Partnerships Building and Enhancing Researcher-Practitioner/Policymaker Partnerships The above project will fit in nicely with these themes and likely to find support once some preliminary work has been done. References Brantingham, PJ and Brantingham, PL 1991. Environmental Criminology Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Brantingham, PJ and Brantingham, PL 2006. Computational Modeling and Simulation of Spatial and Temporal Crime Pattern in Urban Environments, paper presented at the Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis Conference, Chilliwack, BC, Canada, August. Clarke, RV and M. Felson (Eds.) 1993. Routine Activity and Rational Choice: Advances in Criminological Theory, Vol 5 New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Eck, John and Liu, Lin (Eds.) 2008. Artificial Crime Analysis Systems: Using Computer Simulations and Geographic Information Systems Hershey: Information Science Reference. International Maritime Bureau 2009 <http://www.icc-ccs.org> Rossmo, Kim 1999. Geographical Profiling Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press.