Public SectorClassical-UnsupervisedEmerging Standard

Using social network analysis to understand crime and victimisation

This is like drawing a big map of who knows who in a city, then using math to see which people or groups are at the centre of crime activity or at highest risk of becoming victims. Instead of only looking at individual incidents, it looks at the web of relationships around them.

8.5
Quality
Score

Executive Brief

Business Problem Solved

Traditional crime analysis focuses on incidents, locations, and individuals in isolation. This approach uses social network analysis to identify high‑risk groups, key influencers, and hidden structures (e.g., gangs, co‑offending networks, victimisation clusters), enabling more targeted policing, prevention, and victim support.

Value Drivers

Better targeting of policing and prevention resourcesEarlier detection of emerging criminal networks or hotspotsImproved risk assessment for vulnerable individuals and communitiesEvidence-based policy design using network-level insightsPotential reduction in crime and victimisation over time

Strategic Moat

Access to detailed law-enforcement, court, and social-service data, plus longitudinal network data on offenders and victims, which are hard for others to replicate and can become a proprietary analytical asset for the public agency or research institution.

Technical Analysis

Model Strategy

Classical-ML (Scikit/XGBoost)

Data Strategy

Structured SQL

Implementation Complexity

Medium (Integration logic)

Scalability Bottleneck

Complexity and privacy constraints when building and maintaining large, dynamic social graphs from sensitive criminal justice and victimisation data.

Market Signal

Adoption Stage

Early Majority

Differentiation Factor

Focuses specifically on applying social network analysis to crime and victimisation rather than generic network analytics, aligning methodology with public safety, criminology, and victim support use cases in the public sector.