Gisela Bichler and Aili E. Malm (Eds.), Disrupting criminal networks: Network analysis in crime prevention
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865815616536 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
References
Borer, T. A. (2003). A taxonomy of victims and perpetrators: Human rights and reconciliation in
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Cussan, T., & Bryant, W. (2015). Research in practice no. 38: Domestic/family homicide in
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Schmid, A. P. (2011). The definition of terrorism. In A. P. Schmid (Ed.), The Routledge handbook
of terrorism research (pp. 39–98). Abingdon: Routledge.
Gisela Bichler and Aili E. Malm (Eds.), Disrupting criminal networks: Network analysis in crime prevention,
FirstForumPress: London, 2015; 282 pp. ISBN 978-1-626-37227-6, £62.50 (hbk)
Reviewed by: Colin Atkinson, Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of
Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Disrupting Criminal Networks: Network Analysis in Crime Prevention, edited by Gisela
Bichler and Aili E. Malm, is the 28th volume in Ronald V. Clarke’s long-running series
on crime prevention studies. This particular volume emphasises the nature, importance
and utility of social network analysis (SNA) to both crime researchers and crime pre-
vention practitioners. Such an endeavour is sorely needed. Based on my previous experi-
ence as a law enforcement intelligence analyst, it is clear practitioners are tuned to the
potential of SNA to assist them in their daily business, but that knowledge about SNA in
law enforcement must be improved. I was therefore particularly interested in reading
Bichler and Malm’s edited volume.
Disrupting Criminal Networks: Network Analysis in Crime Prevention contains 10 peer-
reviewed chapters that apply SNA to various forms of criminal activity, with a view to
highlighting the potential utility of an SNA approach to understanding and tackling these
issues. The formsof criminality to which SNA is applied in these chapters range from street
gangs in chapter1 (McGloin and Rowan) to terrorismin chapter 10 (Bush and Bichler). The
editors recognise the diversity of scholarship contained therein and contend that the
common thread running through each chapter is the demonstration of why networks
matter to crime prevention (p. 3). A pair of chapters in the core of this book – David A.
Bright’s ‘Identifying Key Actors in DrugTrafficking Networks’ and FrancescoCalderoni’s
‘Predicting Organized Crime Readers’ – offer strong evidence of why networks matter.
These two respective chapters demonstrate how forms of SNA may assist law enforce-
ment in understanding organised crime networks and targetting resources more effect-
ively. Some of the techniques described may already be widely practiced in law
enforcement. For example, Bright’s depiction of identifying core and peripheral actors
in a drug trafficking network (p. 69) resonates with techniques currently used by intel-
ligence analysts to target surveillance resources or potential disruption opportunities (the
latter of which may include, for example, the arrest of specific actors or their recruitment
as a covert source of intelligence). There are other important insights in Bright’s analysis
too, particularly his contention that the ‘key actor’ question ‘is complicated by the fluid
and dynamic nature of criminal networks, which change structure according to shifting
operational aims, challenges in running an illicit enterprise, and the impact of law
enforcement interventions, and changes in the illicit market’. (p. 85). Bright’s analysis
here has implications for Calderoni’s subsequent chapter on predicting organised crime
Book Reviews 457
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