“Legitimate Strengths in Criminal Networks”

Extending from the organizing crime perspective, we study how legitimate world actors contribute to structuring a criminal network. This focus also underscores the facilitating role that some participants have in criminal settings. Based on a case study of an illegal drug importation network that was monitored by law-enforcement investigators over a two-year period, we find that although most legitimate actors (or non-traffickers) had nominal roles and contributed minimally to the criminal network's structure, a minority of these actors were critical to the network in two ways: (1) they were active in bringing other participants (including traffickers) into the network; and (2) they were influential directors of relationships with both non-traffickers and traffickers. The presence of such influential participants from legitimate occupational settings illustrates how upperworld figures can facilitate criminal enterprise beyond the mere contributions of legitimate status and expertise.     

Criminal network security: An agent‐based approach to evaluating network resilience*

Criminal networks are frequently at risk of disruption through arrest and interorganizational violence. Difficulties in designing empirical studies of criminal network recovery, however, have problematized research into network responses to disruption. In this study, we evaluate criminal network resilience by examining network recovery from disruption in an array of different criminal networks and across different disruption strategies. We use an agent‐based model to evaluate how criminal networks recover from disruption. Our results reveal the vulnerabilities and time to recovery of numerous criminal organizations, and through them, we identify which disruption strategies are most effective at damaging various criminal networks.     

Models of South-East Asian Organised Crime Drug Operations in Queensland

In 2002, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) issued a report entitled Results of a pilot survey of forty selected organized criminal groups in sixteen countries which established five models of organised crime. This paper reviews these and other common organised crime models and drug trafficking models, and applies them to cases of South East Asian drug trafficking in the Australian state of Queensland. The study tests the following hypotheses: (1) South-East Asian drug trafficking groups in Queensland will operate within a criminal network or core group; (2) Wholesale drug distributors in Queensland will not fit consistently under any particular UN organised crime model; and (3) Street dealers will have no organisational structure. The study concluded that drug trafficking or importation closely resembles a criminal network or core group structure. Wholesale dealers did not fit consistently into any UN organised crime model. Street dealers had no organisational structure as an organisational structure is typically found in mid- to high-level drug trafficking.     

Evolution of a drug trafficking network: Mapping changes in network structure and function across time

There is a growing body of research using social network analysis to study criminal networks. The great majority of this research examines networks at a single time point. Although there are theoretical approaches which hypothesise on how criminal networks develop and grow, little empirical research has been conducted on the growth of criminal networks over time. This project documents the growth of a drug trafficking network. The aims were to examine and describe structural and functional changes in a criminal network across time. We found that the density of the network remained somewhat stable over time, although the network became more decentralised at the final time point measured. Centrality scores for individual nodes showed significant changes over time. Individuals changed the roles performed across time, consistent with the changing needs and focus of the network. Overall, our results support the characterisation of networks as flexible and adaptive.     

In and out of prison: Do importation factors predict all forms of misconduct or just the more serious ones?

Purpose

This study was designed to investigate whether importation factors predict all forms of prison misconduct and recidivism or just the more serious forms.

Methods

Six importation factors were examined: age, marital status, street gang affiliation, criminal thinking, prior drug abuse, and criminal history. Count data for two high severity infractions (assault, escape), two high-moderate severity infractions (fighting, possession of intoxicants), two moderate severity infractions (refusing programs, stealing), two high severity crimes (assault, robbery), and two moderate severity crimes (DUI, failure to appear) were regressed onto these six importation variables in samples of 2488 (prison infractions) and 1101 (recidivism) male inmates.

Results

The importation variables successfully predicted the four infractions that were rated high and high-moderate in severity and the two crimes that were rated high severity but not the two infractions or two crimes that were rated as moderate in severity.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that importation factors are differentially predictive of more serious forms of infraction and recidivism and that the importation model may have as much to offer the study of community adjustment and recidivism as it does the study of institutional adjustment and disciplinary infractions as part of the more general theoretical construct of criminal propensity.     

The social network of hackers

Social researchers are facing more and more challenges as criminal networks are expanding in size and moving to the Internet. Many efforts are currently under way to enhance the technical capabilities of researchers working in the field of cybercrimes. Rather than focusing on the technical tools that could enhance research performance, this article focuses on a specific field that has demonstrated its use in the study of criminal networks: social network analysis (SNA). This article evaluates the effectiveness of SNA to enhance the value of information on cybercriminals. This includes both the identification of possible targets for follow-up research as well as the removal of subjects who may be wasting the researchers' time. This article shows that SNA can be useful on two levels. First, SNA provides scientific and objective measures of the structure of networks as well as the position of their key players. Second, fragmentation metrics, which measure the impact of the removal of n nodes in a network, help to determine the amount of resources needed to deal with specific organisations. In this case study, a tactical strike against the network could have had the same destabilising impact as a broader approach. The resources saved by limiting the investigation targets could then be used to monitor the criminal network's reaction to the arrests and to limit its ability to adapt to the post-arrest environment.     

Networks within networks: using multiple link types to examine network structure and identify key actors in a drug trafficking operation

Understanding criminal networks can aid in the identification of key players and important relationships within the network. We examined multiple, directed link types in a criminal network. Eight distinct link types were identified, each one related to the exchange of a particular resource (e.g. drugs, money). The analyses focused on the eight link-type network layers and a merged network representing links across all eight layers. We were able to determine the link type of around 31% of the links, and found that nearly 50% of the nodes were involved in more than one network layer. This suggests that many actors contribute in multiple, diverse ways to the operation of the network. Actors were found to specialise in the exchange of particular types of resources, and also to specialise in the strategic position they occupied in the transfer of particular resources.     

Forensic drug intelligence: an important tool in law enforcement

Organised criminality is a great concern for national/international security. The demonstration of complex crimes is increasingly dependant on knowledge distributed within law-enforcement agencies and scientific disciplines. This separation of knowledge creates difficulties in reconstructing and prosecuting such crimes. Basic interdisciplinary research in drug intelligence combined with crime analysis, forensic intelligence, and traditional law enforcement investigation is leading to important advances in crime investigation support. Laboratory results constitute one highly dependable source of information that is both reliable and testable. Their operational use can support investigation and even provide undetected connections or organisation of structure. The foremost difficulties encountered by drug analysts are not principally of a chemical or analytical nature, but methodologies to extract parameters or features that are deemed to be crucial for handling and contextualising drug profiling data. An organised memory has been developed in order to provide accurate, timely, useful and meaningful information for linking spatially and temporally distinct events on a national and international level (including cross-border phenomena). Literature has already pointed out that forensic case data are amenable for use in an intelligence perspective if data and knowledge of specialised actors are appropriately organised, shared and processed. As a particular form of forensic case data, the authors' research focuses on parameters obtained through the systematic physical and chemical profiling of samples of illicit drugs. The procedure is used to infer and characterise links between samples that originate from the same and different seizures. The discussion will not, however, focus on how samples are actually analysed and compared as substantial literature on this topic already exists. Rather, attention is primarily drawn to an active and close collaboration between magistrates, forensic scientists, law enforcement investigators and crime analysts from different institutions with the aim of generating, using and validating relevant profiling case data as integral part of investigative and crime analysis processes. Original advances are highlighted through experiences from criminal investigations of offences related to the unlawful importation, exportation, supply and possession of illicit drugs.     

论诉权理论在刑事诉讼中的导入

诉权理论是民事诉讼中的一个重要理论基石 ,将这一理论引入到刑事诉讼法学的研究中 ,对于科学合理地配置当事人在刑事诉讼中的具体诉讼权利 ,完善对抗制的诉讼机制 ,开拓刑事诉讼法学的研究视野等都具有重要的意义。尽管诉权理论在刑事诉讼中的导入有一些障碍性因素 ,但这些因素是可以克服的。在刑事诉讼中研究诉权理论有必要从理论上阐述诉权与宪法、诉权与人权、诉权与国家刑罚权、诉权与当事人权利之间的关系。此外 ,还应当根据诉权理论 ,对刑事诉讼构造、侦查中司法控制机制、检察官起诉裁量权以及审判方式之改革等问题进行制度性变革。     

Sense-making and secondary victimization among unsolved homicide co-victims

Sense-making is a form of meaning-making that focuses on understanding loss which then contributes to identity reconstruction. This qualitative study examines how perceived communication with the criminal justice system can inhibit sense-making among unsolved homicide co-victims. One-time intensive interviews were conducted with 37 co-victims about their interactions with police and prosecutors. A grounded theory approach suggest that co-victims held negative views of the police and prosecutors because they perceived them as inhibiting their ability to adequately locate information needed to understand the crime and achieve justice. Results also suggest that race and ethnicity play a role in reducing sense-making because constructions of meaning were based on perceptions of discrimination. In the end, the intense desire for information, resolution, and justice led several co-victims to investigate their loved one's murder. Policies that law enforcement should adopt to promote better communication with co-victims and facilitate sense-making are examined.     

Criminal network vulnerabilities and adaptations

The current paper aimed to investigate the effectiveness of five law enforcement interventions in disrupting and dismantling criminal networks. We tested three law enforcement interventions that targeted social capital in criminal networks (betweenness, degree and cut-set) and two interventions that targeted human capital (actors who possess money and those who possess precursor chemicals). These five interventions are compared with each other and with random (opportunistic) removal of actors in two settings: (i) with network adaptation incorporated into the simulations and (ii) without network adaptation. Results illustrate that the removal of actors based on betweenness centrality was the most efficient strategy, leading to network disruption in the least number of steps and was relatively consistent across replications. Targeting actors who possessed money was the second most effective overall and was also relatively consistent in its disruptive effect.     

A SENSE OF INJUSTICE?:

The literature on the impact of processing a defendant through the criminal justice system has long assumed that this experience created a “sense of injustice” for defendants which militated against rehabilitative efforts within correctional settings. The current research examined this assumption with data collected from a sample of inmates in a medium and a maximum security institution within a midwestern state. The findings serve to question the assumption of the development of a sense of injustice, as most inmates perceive themselves as having been treated fairly by the criminal justice system. It is also found that there is little relationship between attitudes toward the preprison criminal justice system and measures of prisonization. The results are discussed in reference to their relevance to the functional and importation models of prisonization.     

网络搜查及其规制研究

网络犯罪借助现代科技,使得传统侦查手段难以应付,而网络留痕的技术特征使实施网络搜查打击犯罪成为可能。实践中的网络搜查包括网络通信审查、"黑客行为"、植入计算机"病毒"、利用后门程序等类型,具有专业技术性、远程非接触性、受客观条件限制小、高度封闭性和秘密性等特征,可能给公民的隐私权和个人信息安全造成威胁。为实现网络搜查的依法运行,应明确其本质属性仍为搜查,需遵循搜查之原则,如强制侦查法定原则、比例原则、令状原则、司法审查原则。根据此种属性和原则,可以通过限制网络搜查的适用案件类型、程序启动的证明标准,明确司法审查机制和实施程序,实现对我国网络搜查制度的合理规制。     

From data to disruption

Organized crime groups and law enforcement agencies are caught in complex system similar to a continuous game of cat-and-mouse, in which the latter frequently remains two or more steps behind. Law enforcement agencies are therefore seeking for more proactive strategies in targeting these criminal network structures more effectively. This starts with a better understanding of the way they operate and adapt over time. A key element to developing this understanding remained largely unexploited: big data and big data analytics. This provides novel insight into how criminal cooperations on a micro- and meso level are embedded in small-world criminal macro-networks and how this fosters its resillience against disruption. This paper discusses the opportunities and the limitations of this data-driven approach and its implications for both law enforcement practice and scientific research.     

犯罪网络分析:社会网络分析在有组织犯罪研究中的应用

在刑事司法领域所使用的"网络"(networks)一词通常是指犯罪组织。一个犯罪网络首先也是一个社会网络,社会网络分析是对社会关系结构及其属性加以分析的一套规范和方法。它主要分析的是不同社会单位(个体、群体或社会)所构成的关系的结构及其属性。自美国"9.11事件"以来,世界各国政府、学者、媒体逐渐认识到社会网络分析在有组织犯罪防控研究中的重要作用,纷纷使用社会网络分析方法对恐怖主义犯罪等有组织犯罪进行犯罪网络分析、研究,通过解构犯罪组织,发现犯罪成员体系、结构特征与行动目标,从而对有组织犯罪进行有效预防和打击。我国应充分认识社会网络分析在现代有组织犯罪防控研究中的重要价值,全面了解国外有关理论与应用发展,积极采取政府资助项目研发与直接设立研究机构等多种手段,促进犯罪网络分析理论与方法在我国的迅速发展。