The Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis (CINA) Center is an emeritus center of the prestigious network of DHS Centers of Excellence and was funded by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate’s Office of University Programs to bring together leading experts and researchers to pursue multidisciplinary approaches to address the disruption of criminal activities across the physical and cyber spaces. This George Mason-led consortium advanced science while pursuing the development of cutting-edge solutions and innovative educational and training activities to support the DHS workforce.
To support the disruption of such activities, the CINA Center established an ecosystem of innovation in research, training and education. Led by George Mason University, CINA built on a foundation of multidisciplinary research across a number of George Mason’s Colleges and institutes of higher education across the country and overseas.
CINA pursued a comprehensive set of programs and activities designed to equip practitioners, end users, decision makers, and U.S. policy makers in the homeland security enterprise with state-of-the-art knowledge, expertise, methods, tools, and technologies to help combat the growing threat of transnational crime.
CINA’s Research Portfolio Comprised the Following:
Criminal Network Analysis
Intended to equip HSE stakeholders with a thorough understanding and knowledge of criminal activity, its evolution, and convergence, ranging from gang activities to money laundering and human trafficking, and the tools to monitor and disrupt these activities.
Dynamic Patterns of Criminal Activity
Intended to provide HSE stakeholders with cutting-edge methods, tools and activities to predict future criminal activities, gang activities, and threats to the US, studying them at the geographical, social, and cyber dimensions.
Forensics
Intended to develop and deploy state-of-the-art forensic methods, tools, and technologies within the HSE community.
Criminal Investigative Processes
Intended to improve HSE end user investigative processes used to detect, pursue and solve transnational criminal activity.