FBI National Stolen Art File: Lost Artifacts and Missing Data

This data exploration project studies the FBI’s National Stolen Art File (NSAF). The NSAF is a repository for information on stolen artistic and cultural objects. By design, the objects in the NSAF should have distinguishing features and some monetary value, with a present minimum of $5,000 USD. As a public awareness tool, the objects in the NSAF should have a reasonable chance of being identified and potentially restituted in the future. Using object data taken from the NSAF on August 25, 2024, my data exploration work includes a narrative of the data preparation process and a series of data visualizations. The most significant findings in this report are reflections on the overarching challenges and opportunities offered by the NSAF dataset. The analysis and accompanying visualizations in this project provide examples for how further research and more consistent object data might be employed to identify physical conditions and social contexts associated with higher incidences of cultural object theft. The code repository is publicly available at: https://github.com/alliarnold/fbi_stolen_art_research.