Government Technology Article: Counter-Insurgency Software Goes Stateside: Use of game theory by Los Angeles Sheriff's Department

he military is working with local law enforcement to develop software that will help track gang networks.

Software now known as the Organizational, Relationship and Contact Analyzer (ORCA) was initially developed and used in military operations to identify networks of insurgents, and is now being used domestically. The military will use the domestic tests as a way to hone the software for future wartime applications, while in the meantime providing police gang units with a valuable free tool that could eventually see a more widespread deployment.

Paulo Shakarian, teacher at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and primary investigator on the project, said that he and a group of students are now working with a major metropolitan police department in the U.S. that reached out to them for help with their city’s gang problem.