Human Trafficking Interdiction Problem: A Data Driven Approach to Modeling and Analysis

Abstract

Based on the human trafficking incidence data from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD), we have built a model of movement patterns of traffickers within the contiguous US states. We utilized the model for developing interdiction strategies for the law enforcement authorities, with the goal of maximizing interdiction pay-off within the agency budget, where pay-off is measured in terms of the number of trafficking incidences disrupted. In addition, from the U.S. Interstate Highway Map, we have built a U.S. Interstate Network Graph (USING) to test our interdiction pay-off maximization algorithm. This is a realistic approximation of the U.S. highway system and will be made available to researchers engaged in trafficking interdiction research. Finally, we evaluate our techniques on the data from LVMPD on USING and present the results.