Do all the pieces matter? Assessing the reliability of law enforcement data sources for the network analysis of wire taps

Giulia Berlusconi

Global Crime, 2013, vol. 14, issue 1, 61-81

Abstract: Law enforcement agencies rely on data collected from wire taps to construct the organisational chart of criminal enterprises. Recently, a number of academics have also begun to utilise social network analysis to describe relations among criminals and understand the internal organisation of criminal groups. However, before drawing conclusions about the structure or the organisation of criminal groups, it is important to understand the limitations that selective samples such as wire taps may have on network analysis measures. Electronic surveillance data can be found in different kinds of court records and the selection of the data source is likely to influence the amount of missing information and, consequently, the results. This article discusses the impact that the selection of a specific data source for the social network analysis of criminal groups may have on centrality measures usually adopted in organised crime research to identify key players.

Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17440572.2012.746940 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:fglcxx:v:14:y:2013:i:1:p:61-81

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FGLC20

DOI: 10.1080/17440572.2012.746940

Access Statistics for this article

Global Crime is currently edited by Carlo Morselli

More articles in Global Crime from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().