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Category: Social Networks and Crime

Kreager, D. A., Young, J. T. N., Haynie, D. L., Bouchard, M., Schaefer, D. R., & Zajac, G. (2017). Where “old heads” prevail: Inmate hierarchy in a men’s prison unit. American Sociological Review, 82(4), 685-718.

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 |  Categories: Academic papers, Social Networks and Crime

Research on inmate social order, a once-vibrant area, receded just as U.S. incarceration rates climbed and the country’s carceral contexts dramatically changed. This study returns to inmate society with an abductive mixed-methods investigation of informal status within a contemporary men’s prison unit. We collected narrative and social network data from 133 male inmates housed in…

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Ouellet, F., & Bouchard, M. (2017). Only a Matter of Time? The Role of Criminal Competence in Avoiding Arrest. Justice Quarterly, 34(4), 699-726.

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 |  Categories: Academic papers, Selected - Social Networks and Crime, Social Networks and Crime

While prior research has shown that the probability of detection plays a role in the decision-making of many offenders, much less is known on offenders’ relative success in avoiding arrest. In this study, we draw from detailed criminal career data on 172 offenders involved in lucrative criminal activities to examine the role of criminal competence…

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Ouellet, M., Bouchard, M., & Hart, M. (2017). Criminal collaboration and risk: The drivers of Al Qaeda’s network structure before and after 9/11. Social Networks, 51, 171-177.

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 |  Categories: Academic papers, Selected - Social Networks and Crime, Social Networks and Crime

A group’s resilience is often linked to its network structure. While decentralized network properties have been associated with resilience at the group-level, little is known about the individual-level factors that lead groups to adopt these structures. Criminal groups, consistently faced with unexpected external disruptions, provide an opportunity to examine individual decisions to collaborate across periods…

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Schaefer, D., Bouchard, M., Young, J., & Kreager, D. (2017). Friends in locked places: An investigation of prison inmate network structure, Social Networks, 51, 88-103.

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 |  Categories: Academic papers, Selected - Social Networks and Crime, Social Networks and Crime

The current study investigates informal social structure among prison inmates. Data come from the Prison Inmate Network Study (PINS), a project focused on a unit of a Pennsylvania medium security men’s prison. We focus on 205 inmates and their “get along with” network – an approximation of friendship in other settings. We find a weak…

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Ouellet, M., & Bouchard, M. (2016). Terror on Repeat: Criminal Social Capital and Participation in Multiple Attacks. International Criminal Justice Review, 26(4), 316-336.

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 |  Categories: Academic papers, Social Networks and Crime

Criminal and terrorist organizations often depend on repeat offenders to maintain the group’s longevity, especially after repeated law enforcement interventions. Yet, little is known about the offenders who perpetrate multiple incidents on behalf of a group. Relying on data for 118 terrorist offenders involved across eight attacks from 2000 to 2005, this study examines the…

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Nash, R., Bouchard, M., & Malm, A. (2016). Social Networks as Predictors of the Harm Suffered by Victims of a Large-Scale Ponzi Scheme. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 59(1), 26-62.

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 |  Categories: Academic papers, Social Networks and Crime

Ponzi schemes are a type of social network where investors are recruited by a variety of social actors. This study uses network analysis to investigate whether the type of social tie that influenced victims of the Eron Ponzi scheme to invest is associated with the different harms victims experienced from their involvement in the fraud….

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Kreager, D. A., Schaefer, D. R., Bouchard, M., Haynie, D. L., Wakefield, S., Young, J., & Zajac, G. (2016). Toward a criminology of inmate networks. Justice Quarterly, 33(6), 1000-1028.

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 |  Categories: Academic papers, Crime - General, Selected - Social Networks and Crime, Social Networks and Crime

The mid-twentieth century witnessed a surge of American prison ethnographies focused on inmate society and the social structures that guide inmate life. Ironically, this literature virtually froze in the 1980s just as the country entered a period of unprecedented prison expansion, and has only recently begun to thaw. In this manuscript, we develop a rationale…

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Nash, R., & Bouchard, M. (2015). Travel broadens the network: Turning points in the network trajectory of an American Jihadi. In M. Bouchard (Ed.), Social networks, terrorism and counter-terrorism: Radical and connected (pp. 61-82). New York, NY: Routledge Publishing.

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 |  Categories: Social Networks and Crime

Omar Hammami was a self-described “American Jihadi” who published his autobiography on the Internet in early 2012. Not long after, he was to disappear completely from the public eye, leading to speculations on his possible death. In this chapter, we draw from a social network perspective to illustrate Hammami’s journey to jihad, using his autobiography…

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Bouchard, M., & Nash, R. (2015). Researching terrorism and counter-terrorism through a network lens. In M. Bouchard (Ed.), Social networks, terrorism and counter-terrorism: Radical and connected (pp. 48-61). New York, NY: Routledge Publishing.

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 |  Categories: Social Networks and Crime

This study argues that integrating network concepts and network methods to the study of terrorism and counter-terrorism are central ingredients in bringing the field forward from theoretical, empirical and policy perspectives. This is not exactly a new idea, although the move to study terrorist networks did not really take off until the events of 9/11….

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Davies, G., Bouchard, M., Wu, E., Joffres, K., & Frank, R. (2015). Terrorist and extremist organizations’ use of the Internet for recruitment. In M. Bouchard (Ed.), Social networks, terrorism and counter-terrorism: Radical and connected (pp. 105-127). New York, NY: Routledge Publishing.

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 |  Categories: Online Networks, Social Networks and Crime

While recruitment is central to the viability of all groups, the process itself is not necessarily consistent across groups. The purpose of this study is to examine the manner in which and the extent to which terrorist and extremist groups use the Internet for the purpose of recruitment. Based on the two dimensions of intensity…

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