This proposal responds to the August 1999 Solicitation for Science and
Technology by the National Institute of Justice. The Tucson Police Department, Phoenix Police Department, and the
University of Arizona Artificial Intelligence Group propose to partner in the
continued research and development of current state of the art and near term
future database and Intranet technologies to enhance inter-agency sharing and
analysis of information among criminal justice agencies. This partnership will build upon the COPLINK
application that was developed in a two-year effort that began this partnership
between cutting-edge information systems research and law enforcement. The COPLINK prototype has inspired a consortium
of agencies in the state of Arizona committed to using this valuable tool to
make a historical advancement in police information sharing. If this proposal is funded, the first
multi-agency COPLINK Intranet will be developed and deployed, linking the Phoenix
Valley with Tucson, and further development of the application will occur,
including expansion of the database and interface to accommodate a richer array
of available data. Concurrent with this
deployment will be the continued research and development of cutting edge
analysis and knowledge management tools.
Project Goal: As a follow-on project to the original NIJ-funded COPLINK research
(1997-1999), The COPLINK Center for Law Enforcement Information Sharing and
Knowledge Management aims to continue to develop a scalable, distributed, secured,
Web-based law enforcement information sharing model and architecture.
Distributed database technologies and concept-based intelligence analysis
capabilities will be incorporated into an operational law enforcement
environment -- regional (Arizona) law enforcement information sharing. New
linguistic and neural network based case analysis, information visualization,
and Internet agent/spider based technologies will be developed and validated in
the law enforcement context. The COPLINK Center plans to serve as a national
information technology model for timely and cost effective law enforcement
information sharing and knowledge management.