BRIT. J. CRIMINOL.

(2001) 41, 580–594

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU KNOW—

IT’S WHO YOU KNOW THAT COUNTS
Analysing Serious Crime Groups as Social Networks

NI GEL COLES *

This paper draws attention to the failure by criminologists to adopt Social Network Analysis
techniques and concepts in the investigation of criminal networks, particularly in the study of
organized crime. It argues that such techniques offer significant potential advantages to criminolo-
gists seeking to analyse relational data, whilst nonetheless recognizing the methodological limitations
implicit in certain aspects of such data obtained in serious crime studies. Three differing accounts,
published more than 25 years ago, are examined and, it is suggested, collectively represent a
conceptual model offering an explanation as to how extensive criminal networks operate successfully.
This model, if employed together with social network analysis techniques, promises significant
progress towards the understanding of serious crime networks in the United Kingdom.

Introduction
The understanding of serious crime groups, often described as ‘organized’ crime, has
developed enormously in the past 30 years through the use of a variety of techniques. But
the failure to demonstrate beyond all doubt the existence of substantive criminal
networks in the United Kingdom is due not to a lack of effort on the part of criminologists
or, even more importantly, because of the physical absence of such networks. It is
because most of those conducting the search have not adopted some of the valuable
conceptual tools available in related disciplines, even though these concepts could have
allowed criminologists to construct useful hypotheses with which to recognize the
existence of such networks. The disciplines of social psychology and social network
analysis in particular have produced a number of valuable concepts which can suggest
ways in which criminal networks, in theory at least, might be formed and subsequently
function. Admittedly the call to use such techniques has been made previously by several
investigators, most notably by those engaged in criminal intelligence analysis roles. They
have suggested that the key concepts of social network analysis such as the recognition of
‘social distance’, the directional flow of exchanges between individuals, ‘relative
influence’, ‘centrality’ and ‘group cohesiveness’, for example, are particularly applicable
to the study of criminal networks (Davis 1981; Sparrow 1991) and a recent investigation
of British criminal networks has usefully employed a number of such techniques
(McAndrew 1999a).
It is surprising that a set of techniques developed specifically to investigate ‘relational
data’ (Jackson et al. 1996: 86), and derived from the likes of kinship patterns, community
structures and interlocking directorships (Scott 1991: 2), has not proved more attractive

* Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Durham.

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© the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD) 2001

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to those researching serious crime groups. This is especially so where the ‘relational data’
amounts to ‘. . . the contacts, ties and connections, the group attachments and meetings,
which relate one agent to another and so cannot be reduced to the properties of agents
themselves. Relations are not the properties of agents, but of the systems of agents; these
relations connect pairs of agents into larger relational systems’ (Scott 1991: 3) (emphasis
added). Several authors have argued that there is growing evidence of a loose-knit,
though increasingly sophisticated, network between traditional working-class gangs
operating in the larger cities of the United Kingdom who swap services and trade goods
(Bennetto 1995) and that well-established links do exist between criminal practitioners
in major UK cities even though further evidence is required (Hobbs 1994: 455).
Therefore the detailed examination of relational data should be capable of establishing
if such links actually exist and whether these links constitute a ‘social network’. In doing
so they would help to resolve the continuing debate as to their true extent (Levi 1994:
188).
Modern social network analysis has developed from a number of diverse strands. Scott
(1991) usefully identifies three main lines of thought which have produced the modern
discipline: the sociometric analysts utilizing graph theory; the ‘Harvard school’
exploring the patterning of interpersonal relations and the nature of ‘cliques’; and the
Manchester anthropologists investigating the structure of relations—initially in tribal
villages (Scott 1991: 7). Although Mitchell suggested that the use of ‘networks’ as an
analytical concept in the United Kingdom dated only from around 1954 (Mitchell 1969:
1) social network analysis has been increasingly developed as recognition has grown that
many of the important aspects of societal life are effectively organized as networks. Thus
‘the importance of networks in society has put social network analysis at the forefront of
social and behavioural science research’ (Galaskiewicz and Wasserman 1994: xii). As
Wellman and Berkowitz emphasize, social network analysis is not simply a method, but a
rather more fundamental intellectual tool (Wellman and Berkowitz 1988: 4; see also
Barnes 1972: 3) with which complex social structures comprising of individual members
with differing, and often complex, ties between them can be represented as networks. The
discipline therefore provides two key insights. First, that any individual actor is engaged
in a social system involving many other actors and that they act as key reference points in
each other’s decisions. Second, that this interaction often has a regularity and patterning
which can betray the structure in a social system (Knoke and Kuklinski 1991: 173;
Galaskiewicz and Wasserman 1994: xii).

Methodological Issues
It is therefore clear that social network analysis has the very real potential to uncover the
complexities of criminal networks although a note of caution, or perhaps more
accurately several, should be entered at this point. Much of the empirical study utilizing
social network analysis has been of relatively small groups. The plaintive cries a quarter of
a century ago that little was known of the large-scale characteristics of networks (Barnes
1972: 2) or even how the interaction within small groups could aggregate to form large-
scale patterns (Granovetter 1973: 1360) remains substantially true today. Granovetter
has provided one cogent explanation, focusing on statistical problems, for this gap in the
knowledge.
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It is clear why network methods have been confined to small groups: existing methods are extremely
sensitive, in their practicality, to group size because they are population rather than sampling methods.
In a group of size N, the number of potential (symmetric) ties is [N (N–1)/2] (i.e. proportional to N 2) so
that any method meant to deal with the total population faces insuperable obstacles for groups larger
than a few hundred. A group of 5,000, for instance . . . contains over 12 million potential lines in its
network. (Granovetter 1976: 1287–8)

Even the use of conventional statistical procedures on small groups is problematic in that
relational data unavoidably violates the random sampling assumptions inherent to
orthodox social science methodology. Thus, the bases for statistical inferences from
network data remain so poorly understood that only cautious use of statistical measures is
advised by some experts (Knoke and Kuklinski 1982: 30). Whilst it is certainly possible to
undertake quantitative studies of network relationships, for example in the statistical
counts of relations, relational data is much more amenable to qualitative methods (Scott
1991: 3). However, care must be taken over the nature of the relational data examined to
ensure that such measurements are sociologically appropriate (Scott 1991: 50). Of course,
the availability of relational, as opposed to attribute, data is crucial to any detailed
network analysis and there is a difference of view as to whether law enforcement
databases contain sufficiently rich relational data for worthwhile study. Jackson and her
colleagues ambitiously sought to uncover three distinct criminal networks from Dutch
law enforcement records: a command network, an advice network and a friendship
network, but were unable to do so through a lack of information in the police files
(Jackson et al. 1996: 92–3). It may be that they were overly ambitious, or that their
methodology was unnecessarily restrictive. The first objective for any study must
therefore more modestly be to try and establish that a network per se exists, before seeking
to distinguish its sub-components. Both Davis (1981) and Sparrow (1991) have enthusi-
astically argued that sufficient detail is contained within law enforcement material for
this to be a realistic possibility. McAndrew (1999a) has recently demonstrated that such
data can indeed provide the basis for developing our knowledge of the subject. Based on
their experience Jackson and colleagues, however, now advocate an ethnographic
approach which they believe is more likely to yield the richness of material needed to
identify complex relational networks (Jackson et al. 1996: 98). In the United Kingdom,
such ethnographic studies although strongly suggestive of extensive networks, have
proved rather less than conclusive (Taylor 1984; Hobbs 1995).
Essentially the conundrum is simply stated. Ethnographic studies are more likely to
produce rich relational material amenable to social network analytical techniques but
are too demanding to use on a large-scale basis. Secondary data in the form of law
enforcement databases are more likely to contain geographically wide-ranging
information but will probably be content-poor in relational terms. These two
approaches, each inadequate in their way, need not necessarily be mutually exclusive.
Providing the secondary data under examination discloses some relational information it
may be possible to map the extent of a network(s) and in so doing raise important
questions which smaller-scale ethnographic studies could successfully address.
Whichever of these two broad approaches is ultimately adopted a further significant
data problem remains—that of the partial or incomplete network. All large-scale
network studies suffer this problem to a greater or lesser extent but those seeking to
examine criminal networks will be confronted with a particularly acute problem. On the
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one hand, it will rarely be in the best interests of key figures in serious crime groups to
disclose to an investigator, whether of the academic or law enforcement genres, all of his
or her contacts or their true significance. On the other, the ‘social network’ is generally
seen as a total network containing the sum of all possible ties between the constituent
individuals, but in reality the information collected relates to one dimension of that
individual’s relationships such as kin, or occupational or social ties (Barnes 1972: 4). This
is especially true of information obtained from law enforcement databases—here the
data collection ‘plan’ has often been intentionally partial to begin with and even then the
collection target is rarely fully attained.
Finally, it is almost a truism that one’s relational ties are in a constant state of change ‘as
people build up new acquaintances, make new contacts or lose touch with others’
(Mitchell 1969: 26–7). So, for all these reasons, any study must inevitably contend with
partial data and any resulting theoretical conclusions must take account of the possibility
of ‘hidden’ sectors of the network. Despite the very real practical limitations arising from
the statistical and data capture issues the main inhibiting factor, according to
Granovetter, that prevented the study of very large groups was the apparent absence of a
suitable theoretical framework with which to explore these larger networks (Granovetter
1976: 1287). Remarkably, three quite separate and unrelated accounts published within
seven years of each other provided a significant opportunity to develop such a suitable
theoretical framework. The opportunity has yet to be seized and deployed in any
substantial way, especially in the study of large-scale criminal networks.

The Small-World Problem

The first of these accounts is Milgram’s formulation of what he terms the ‘small-world
problem’ (Milgram 1967) which is remarkably straightforward in concept but startling in
its implication for criminal networks. It is therefore worthy of some rehearsal here. The
‘problem’, so-called because of the surprisingly common occurrence where two
strangers who, upon first meeting and recognizing that they share an acquaintance,
comment ‘Isn’t it a small world?’, is simply stated by Milgram:
Starting with any two people in the world, what is the probability that they will know each other? A
somewhat more sophisticated formulation, however, takes account of the fact that while persons X and
Z may not know each other directly, they may share a mutual acquaintance—that is, a person who knows
both of them. One can then think of an acquaintance chain with X knowing Y and Y knowing Z.
(Milgram 1967: 62)

He then goes on to pose a further highly pertinent question. Taking any two individuals
at random, ‘person X and person Z, how many intermediate acquaintance links are
needed before X and Z are connected?’ (Milgram 1967: 62). In theory, at least, the
answer is remarkably few. For the purposes of theoretical argument the basic assumption
was made that each American individual personally knows 500 other people, which would
mean that there was only a one in 200,000 chance that any two Americans randomly
chosen would know each other. But Milgram demonstrated that there is a statistically
greater than 50–50 chance that any two people can be linked through no more than two
intermediate acquaintances (Milgram 1967: 63). In the first ‘small-world’ study Milgram
was able to prove the theory by demonstrating that it was possible to successfully send a
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package from an individual (the starter) in the mid-West of the United States to an
individual in Massachusetts (the target), by the use of acquaintance chains where both
terminal parties were completely unknown to each other. Of 160 chains started, 44 were
successfully completed and averaged only five intermediaries. A further 20 from an
auxiliary study were also successful. Twenty-four of the chains reached the target at home
in a small town outside Boston and of these 16 were given to him by a clothing merchant in
the town. At his place of work, in a Boston brokerage house, ten of the chains passed
through one individual, and five through another. In fact a remarkable 48 per cent of the
chains to reach the target were moved on to him by just three persons (Milgram 1967: 66).
This and subsequent ‘small-world’ studies strongly suggest that Milgram’s ‘acquain-
tance chains’ might constitute the basic elements of a criminal network. Detailed analysis
of these studies reveals other significant characteristics pertinent to serious crime
networks such as the fact that not all potential acquaintance points have equal value. It is
clear, for example, that there are highly popular channels for the transmission of the
chain and that there is differentiation among these commonly used channels, so that
certain of them provide the chief points of transmission in regard to residential contact,
while others have specialized contact possibilities in the occupational domain. For each
possible realm of activity in which the target person is involved, there is likely to emerge a
sociometric star with specialized contact possibilities (Milgram 1967: 63).
Whilst Milgram’s definition and subsequent demonstration of the ‘small-world’
theory has enormous relevance for the study of criminal networks it is important to
understand that although there may be only five intermediaries linking two people across
half a continent those intermediaries each sit within an acquaintance circle of between
500 to 2,500 individuals. As Milgram points out ‘we should think of the two points as
being not five persons apart, but ‘five circles of acquaintances’ apart—five ‘structures’
apart. This helps to set it in its proper perspective’ (Milgram 1967: 67). Technically the
mathematical progression implicit in linking 500 × 500 × 500 × 500 × 500 individuals
would in all practical terms make any analysis totally unrealistic. The significance of
Milgram’s analysis though, for criminal network study, is that the contacts are most
clearly not randomly generated. Rather, there are limited and demonstrable links
between identifiable acquaintance circles; there are comparatively few such circles to be
traversed in making contact across vast distances; and, that the individuals linking the
circles tend to be highly specialized, for example, through the occupational specialism of
the individual or through the individual’s physical or social location.
It is this latter insight provided by Milgram which has a particular relevance for
criminal networks. The individuals who act as the contacts between ‘acquaintance
circles’ or criminal groupings may already have been identified elsewhere as possessing
an occupational specialism and thus, the implication is clear, they occupy key positions
within and between such networks (Mack 1972: 44; Punch 1991: 126; Dorn et al. 1992:
20–21; Hobbs 1997: 12; McAndrew 1999a: 191).

Friends of Friends
In Boissevain’s seminal work on non-criminal social networks two quite distinct types of
resources are identified which are manipulated by entrepreneurs within networks. He
suggests that the first type of resource includes land, jobs, scholarship funds, and
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specialized knowledge, which are controlled directly. The second type of resource is
strategic contact with other people who control such resources, either directly or who, in turn,
have access to further such persons. The former he calls ‘patrons’, but those who control
the second type of resource are termed brokers. Thus a broker is a very special type of
entrepreneur who uniquely controls second order resources manipulating these for his
own profit and ‘brokers are thus highly expert network specialists’ (Boissevain 1974:
147–8).
Boissevain usefully poses the question of what precisely do these expert ‘brokers’ do?
and then proceeds to provide a highly plausible answer:
. . . a social broker places people in touch with each other directly or indirectly for profit. He bridges
gaps in communication between persons, groups, structures and even cultures. Such persons range
from ‘connecting relatives’ who direct the communication between kinsmen and whose profit motive is
more latent than manifest, through political middle-men whose medium of exchange is services,
information, and votes, to such specialists as marriage and real estate brokers whose relations approach
the commercial as their tariff is largely paid in cash . . . A broker is a professional manipulator of people
and information who brings about communication for profit. He thus occupies a strategic place in a
network of social relations viewed as a communication network (Boissevain 1974: 148–9).

Those criminologists whose evidence supports the argument that there are broker-type
individuals active within social networks also suggest that there are no key players in
British serious crime networks such as ringleaders, bosses or godfathers. Instead there
are simply a series of temporary social arrangements orchestrated between a constantly
changing group of actors (Hobbs 1997: 14). They also point out that much current law-
enforcement activity directed at so-called organized crime leaders significantly fails to
disrupt the network even after their arrest. The implication is therefore that the most
important actors in any group are not necessarily the most central figures or even those
occupying the highest positions in a hierarchy (Jackson et al. 1996: 86).
The individual broker derives a personal ‘profit’ from his specialized occupation by
performing a truly important role within a serious crime network in acting as a key
connecting node between groups. But what do those who are not themselves brokers
derive from the services of a broker? The question can also be put in a slightly different
way, ‘are these roles the result of strategic behaviour by individual actors, or is there
something about the structure of networks that generates brokerage roles?’ (Aldrich
1982: 286). Clearly, the ideal way of passing information to another is through direct
personal communication. However, as the size of a network increases beyond a handful
of individuals and as the physical distance between the elements of the network extends
direct communication among all the participants becomes increasingly impractical (Lin
1975: 238). In addition, an individual cannot rely on merely one or two others for each
differing type of assistance necessary to pursue his business and he must therefore
maintain relationships with as wide a variety of individuals as possible (Walker et al. 1994:
53). Where these problems arise for individuals, and they are most likely to arise for
ambitious entrepreneurial criminals already active within a network, then broker roles
will be ‘a natural result of actors’ attempts to minimize transaction costs’ (Aldrich 1982:
289). This explanation for the benefit accruing from the employment of brokers, framed
within a so-called ‘transaction cost approach’, has been compared and contrasted with a
population ecology model in some detail by Aldrich. He argues that more than one
broker would arise because those groups using a broker develop a selective advantage
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over others that do not. However, once introduced into a population, the function would
not only persist, but the concept would be carried by the culture and passed on through
imitation and tradition as the benefits became more widely understood, so that:
Broker roles will thus arise in communities of actors with a common fate because of exposure to similar
environmental contingencies. No ‘altruism’ need be assumed—all parties benefit from the existence of
broker roles. The role, of course, can be played badly or well, and variation in broker behaviour partially
reflects other actors’ problems with bounded rationality and opportunism. But there will be limits to
variation in broker behaviour if the network of connections is not fixed, permitting actors to move
between brokers. Fixed connections would only be expected under a common authority structure,
which means mostly within organizations rather than between them. (Aldrich 1982: 291)

Pursuing the logic of this argument for a moment in the criminal network context, it is
possible to contemplate the situation where unsophisticated groups fail to use brokers
and have no links to other groups; more sophisticated groups, particularly large and
stable groups might employ a number of relatively static individuals as brokers; and, the
most sophisticated, aggressively entrepreneurial groups would utilize a range of capable
brokers operating themselves in chains of brokers. The identification of any varying
usage of brokers in this way might provide an indication of the sophistication or degree
of ‘organization’ of a criminal network.

The Strength of Weak Ties

Having begun to explore the way in which different groups might be connected by
brokers, who those brokers are, and what function they perform the researcher should
try and identify how they are able to exploit their ties with others. Whilst it is the configu-
ration of ties between the network actors that defines the network structure, structures
themselves can vary considerably ‘from the isolated structure in which no actor is
connected to any other actor, to the saturated structure in which every actor is directly
linked to every other individual. More typical of real networks are various intermediate
structures in which some actors are more extensively connected among themselves than
are others’ (Knoke and Kuklinski 1991: 175).
Perhaps the most cogent theory seeking to explain the utility of differing types of
network tie in facilitating contact between groups is the ‘strength of weak ties’ (SWT)
argument advanced by Granovetter (1973; 1982). Tie strength between two individuals is
defined as a combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy,
and the exchange of services which characterize that specific tie (Granovetter 1973:
1361). The theory has important implications not simply for network analysis in general
but more specifically for criminal networks. Essentially, in any group of individuals three
types of tie are identified—strong, weak and absent so that by considering:
. . . any two arbitrarily selected individuals—call them A and B—and the set, S = C,D,E, . . . , of all
persons with ties to either or both of them (the) hypothesis which enables us to relate dyadic ties to large
structures is: the stronger the tie between A and B, the larger the proportion of individuals in S to whom
they will both be tied, that is, connected by a weak or strong tie. This overlap in their friendship circles is
predicted to be least when their tie is absent, most when it is strong, and intermediate when it is weak.
(Granovetter 1973: 1362)
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The point to grasp about this is that in any small group of people, such as a criminal gang,
most individuals will know each other but more importantly they each know several
people who will know any other given individual within the group. In other words, there
is a multiplicity of routes along which information can be passed from one to another. In
such circumstances the ties within the group will often be strong or, if weak, will not
represent the only tie to another so that all individuals can be connected via a chain of
strong ties. ‘The underlying principle is that within the tight network (such as an occupa-
tional network or friendship network), people communicate frequently with each other
and will therefore (eventually) share the same types of information. New information
(such as job opportunities) will often reach the group through people operating outside
the dense group structure’ (Jackson et al. 1996: 88). It is those individuals who have weak
ties to others in other groups who provide the links for the chains along which
information can pass. In circumstances where these are the only links between groups
then these ties form ‘bridges’ between distinct networks which:
means that whatever is to be diffused can reach a larger number of people, and traverse greater social
distance (i.e. path length), when passed through weak ties rather than strong. If one tells a rumour to all
his close friends, and they do likewise, many will hear the rumour a second and third time, since those
linked by strong ties tend to share friends. If the motivation to spread the rumour is dampened a bit on
each wave of retelling, then the rumour moving through strong ties is much more likely to be limited to
a few cliques than that going via weak ones; bridges will not be crossed (Granovetter 1973: 1366).

Of course the converse is true and SWT theory has been further refined (Granovetter
1982) to suggest that those groups with few weak ties, deprived of information from
distant parts of the social system and therefore insulated from new ideas and techniques,
will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Criminal groups which are inward-
looking are likely to be comprised of similar thinking individuals all privy to pretty much
the same information and these groups are therefore going to be less successful both in
terms of financial gain and in their susceptibility to law enforcement initiatives. In terms
of SWT theory it is reasonable to expect that successful crime groups, those considered to
be more ‘organized’, would be richer in weak ties, or ‘isolates’ (McAndrew 1999b), and
any examination of such groups should set out to identify if such ties do in fact exist.
The phenomenon by which an item can be transported across half a continent
described by Milgram in his elucidation of the ‘small-world problem’ and Boissevain’s
identification of individuals acting as brokers are both consistent with Granovetter’s
concept of ‘the strength of weak ties’ particularly if, as he says, the ‘occupational groups
that make the heaviest use of weak ties will be those whose weak ties do connect to social
circles different from one’s own’ (Granovetter 1982: 112). Albeit in outline, these three
theories when taken together provide a strong conceptual framework for understanding
the way in which ‘organized’ crime in the United Kingdom might be linked together in a
network of separate serious crime groups.

Limitations of the Model and Issues of Research Design

Whilst suggesting that the key ideas discussed above provide a basic conceptual frame-
work that offers the means with which to examine criminal networks, several more
practical issues need also to be considered. Matters of research design are important and
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the researcher should conduct an assessment of the likely value or otherwise of specific
social network analysis techniques. A detailed methodological discourse, though
essential, is more appropriately dealt with elsewhere but here such considerations are
important in so far as ensuring that there is an appropriate ‘theoretical fit’ so that the
techniques have a natural practicality when applied to the peculiarly problematic data
deriving from criminal network sampling.
It has been suggested that a network analysis research design needs to incorporate at
least four main elements which should include ‘the choice of sampling units, the form of
relations, the relational content, and the level of data analysis’ (Knoke and Kuklinski
1982: 14). The first of these elements, the choice of sampling unit should be relatively
simple. However, the chosen unit presents particular difficulties with criminal networks
when compared to many other network studies, where analysts can examine formal
organizations or networks within them which rather helpfully automatically provide
complete data sets (Knoke and Kuklinski 1982: 18). The issue of boundary specification
always represents a problem outside of such formal structures for a number of distinct
reasons which are all the more apparent when dealing with serious crime networks where
the social relations of individuals are not confined to a particular group or even to a
specific locality. Where connections beyond these categories are overlooked, ‘. . . the
social network studied will be an imperfect representation of the full network. This is
especially clear in the case of informal groups, such as (criminal) gangs, where the
boundaries of the group are loosely drawn and where gang members’ activities stretch
well beyond its core membership’ (Scott 1991: 57). The activities of criminal groups
especially in the entrepreneurial culture of the late modern period (Hobbs 1995) are in
effect temporary alliances or coalitions often established purely to achieve a limited
purpose (Boissevain 1974: 170–1) and may therefore be of a somewhat transitory nature
(Jackson et al. 1996: 85). For this very reason:
criminal networks are, for all practical purposes, dynamic, not static. Each contact report, telephone
call, or financial transaction has a time and date. The relationship between any two individuals is not
merely present or absent (binary), nor is it simply weaker or stronger . . . ; rather it has a distribution over
time, waxing and waning from one period to another. (Sparrow 1991: 263)

So not only are the boundaries of criminal networks ambiguous, or ‘fuzzy’, but the
network data will inevitably be incomplete if only because some of the links or nodes
remain unobserved and therefore unrecorded (Sparrow 1991: 262). For this reason
‘investigators should be sensitive to the problem of missing data (even though) no
failsafe solution to the missing data problem exists’ (Knoke and Kuklinski 1982: 34–5).
Despite this problem, McAndrew argues that what is actually known is capable of
providing sufficient detail for analysis (McAndrew 1999b: 60). The question then arises,
if the researcher cannot specify the boundary or have confidence that he or she is in
possession of a complete set of data, how can any reliable conclusions be drawn from
such incomplete material? As Scott authoritatively points out, these varying problems
mean that specifying the network boundary is not a simple matter of recognizing where a
‘natural’ line can be drawn but more that ‘. . . the determination of boundaries in
a research project is the outcome of a theoretically informed decision about what is
significant in the situation under investigation . . . Researchers are involved in a process
of conceptual elaboration and model building, not a simple process of collecting pre-
formed data’ (Scott 1991: 58–9). If it is true that networks are formed when individuals
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begin to make significant transactional investments with each other which subsequently
develop into an ongoing relationship then researchers must define boundaries in
relational rather than categorical terms (Aldrich 1982: 287).
Having accepted that any idea of formal positions is inappropriate in defining the
boundaries of criminal networks, the researcher might then argue that the sampling unit
when researching British serious crime groups should be the dyadic connection between
any two members of those serious crime groups. Although the common strategy when
studying small-scale social networks has been to identify the members of a particular
group and then to map the connections between them, it is recognized that this is not a
straightforward matter (Scott 1991: 56), although ‘. . . without the assumption of a
bounded system of social actors the (subsequent) network unit of analysis is problematic’
(Aldrich 1982: 286–7). In identifying those individuals within the group—in this case
those who are ‘serious criminals’—and thus worthy of study, the use of a reputational
approach is probably unavoidable. Therefore reliance has to be placed in what are
hopefully knowledgeable informants whose reports are accurate (Scott 1991: 58–9), if
only because other more conventional sampling techniques are entirely impracticable.
These, though, are methodological issues and it is the general applicability of the
techniques of network analysis in the research design that are of interest here.
The sometimes rather circumlocutory and consequently confusing nature of some of
the literature, especially the terminological plurality for the same or similar technique or
phenomenon, should not mean that the very real validity of much of the discipline is
overlooked. An attempt to rationalize the theory is therefore worth making. Essentially,
these techniques and methods can be separated into two distinct though closely inter-
related foci, one principally ‘structural’ and the other primarily ‘interactional’. The
structural focus is on the form and patterning displayed by networks and tends to utilize
more precise quantitative techniques. The interactional focus however is much more on
the nature of the links between the actors and whilst also utilizing quantitative measure-
ments it additionally employs measurements amenable to a qualitative interpretation,
or which require some subjective judgement to render them meaningful. This
dichotomous approach is to some extent ameliorated by those terms and methods which
are interactionally directed but designed to inform structural enquiry, such as so-called
‘cohesion variable’ characteristics like behavioural norms and attitudinal agreement.
Thus Knoke and Kuklinski’s distinction between relational content and relational form
can be accused of a degree of artificiality. However, it is understood that the relational
detail of the dyadic connections between group members is unquestionably a most
important area for study, which when subsequently viewed as a section of the network can
give some pattern and meaning to the whole. Examples of relational content have been
cited as ‘transactional’, ‘communicational’, ‘instrumental’, ‘kinship’, and ‘authority/
power’ relations, amongst others, (Knoke and Kuklinski 1991: 177) and all have
relevance to the study of organized criminal networks. But to a considerable extent the
relational content is effectively indistinguishable from the relational form of the
network. The big question at this point is whether the available data will be rich enough
to yield such conclusions, although at least one group of researchers remains decidedly
pessimistic (Jackson et al. 1996: 92–3). Even though the sampling is to be conducted at
the dyadic level it is the properties of the network that are of most interest and so it is at
that level of analysis that the detailed research must be conducted in the expectation of
developing the most useful insights.
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Network Analysis Techniques

To successfully achieve any meaningful analysis at the network level the data must be
subjected to a variety of specialized measures focusing on what Mitchell describes as
‘interactional’ and ‘morphological’, or structural, characteristics (Mitchell 1969: 12).
The former refer to the nature of the links themselves, especially relating to their
‘strength’, such as the content, directedness, durability, intensity and frequency of the
interaction revealed in the links. The latter however include anchorage, density,
reachability, range and centrality and refer to the relationship or patterning of the links in
the network in respect to one another as well as the aggregation of such links in clusters,
cliques or coalitions.
Many of the techniques are confusingly given alternative titles by different specialists
but they are all methods with which to analyse collected data in order to understand the
character of the network. In dealing first with the interactional characteristics, an early
procedure to be undertaken must involve some assessment of what is commonly referred
to as ‘tie strength’. That is, the strength of the relationship between any two actors who
are connected together and there are several separate measures of tie strength which
include recency of contact, frequency of contact (Aldrich 1982: 286; Granovetter 1982:
109), duration of the contact, as well as the nature or quality of the relationship between
the two individuals. In assessing the applicability of such measures it is important to be
aware of the extent of personal ‘investment’ being displayed so that, for example, the
‘frequency of interaction, in short, may often be, but is not always, an index of the
investment of the actors in the relation (although) the duration of the contact is perhaps a
more telling index than frequency of interaction, as it is a measure of the amount of time
(a limited resource) that people invest in each other’ (Boissevain 1974: 34). Certainly,
commentators tend to agree that although it is one of the simplest measures to achieve, a
high frequency of contact does not necessarily imply a highly intense relationship and
may therefore be of no more than marginal utility to the wider study of network relations
(Mitchell 1969: 29).
The nature of the relationship inherent in a tie is perhaps one of the most important
characteristics of the network which can be seen as forming two quite different ideal
types of action—‘communication’, involving the transfer of information between
individuals, and the ‘instrumental’ or purposive type of action, involving a transfer of
goods and services between the members (Scott 1991: 31). The nature of the relationship
is therefore one of the most difficult to evaluate unless the subjects are themselves a
party to the study, when detailed information can be personally sought from the actors.
Nevertheless, some understanding of the nature of the relationship between any two
individuals should be attempted because, for example influence and domination,
the fundamental dimensions of ‘power’, are clearly exercised through the two-way
communicative relationships that connect actors in a network (Knoke 1994: 275–6). The
intensity of such relationships is evidenced by the extent ‘to which individuals are
prepared to honour obligations, or feel free to exercise the rights implied in their link
to some other person’ (Mitchell 1969: 27). Such interactions are also responsible for
the creation and maintenance of attitudes (Erickson 1988: 99) which, when replicated
throughout the network, may come to form widespread belief systems (Erickson
1982: 159). The role of these various cohesion-variables is therefore of particular
significance in the study of serious crime groups where secrecy and coordination are
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often at a premium (Lupsha 1983: 65). Though measures of relational ‘intensity’ are
difficult to devise in any research exercise, those directed at serious crime groups
inevitably have unique problems where the researcher may be solely reliant upon
secondary data. Indeed the only option may be to rely on a subjective estimate based on
the sum of information available and then subsequently to categorize the relationship
on that basis.
In any case such subjective assessment may actually be a ‘necessary correction to an
over-reliance on the quantitative indices of content and structure’ (Boissevain 1974: 46).
How else can the researcher gauge the qualitative value of the available network
evidence, such as in the following example provided by a major criminal?
We’d met through introductions and got to know each other better through having a drink. You always
get the belly of a man by having a drink and watching how he behaves. Whatever shortcomings there
were in any of us you’d find out over a drink. But we’d served our apprenticeship in villainy and now you
couldn’t have wished for a better, more reliable group of men. (Foreman 1996: 104)

Somewhat paradoxically, qualitative assessment might, for example, be assisted by the

analysis of certain quantitative data such as telephone billing records if, as has been
suggested, ‘telephone contact, which is more voluntary than face-to-face contact, is
significantly correlated with strength of the relationship . . . [because] the telephone acts
as a social catalyst that keeps network members connected’ (Walker et al. 1994: 60). In
this context the view that the historical role of ever-developing telecommunication
technologies in social life has avoided detailed study (Fischer 1992: 368) remains highly
valid. It is apparent that a much greater analysis of the telephone usage by individuals
active within serious crime networks would represent a potentially valuable means of
elucidating relationship quality as well as corroborating the simple fact of a tie between
individuals. Such an analysis, if suitably ‘triangulated’ with other sources, could provide
useful material for the inevitably subjective assessment of relational content and
intensity.
If the strength of ties alone were to be studied then other important issues relating to
the nature of the relationship would be overlooked (Granovetter 1973: 1372). In turning
to the ‘morphological’ characteristics it is suggested, first, that a measurement of the
‘density’ of ties between individual actors could be useful in achieving a realistic estimate
of the density of the wider network from which the sample was drawn (Knoke and
Kuklinski 1982: 27). This might conceivably be important when reporting upon those
networks for which the researcher has incomplete data. In other words, if density
represents the completeness of the network (Mitchell 1969: 17–9) and can be illustrated
by the number of theoretically possible ties between members of the group which are
actually present in the sample then this could provide information not only on the
probable accuracy of the study but also indicate the type of network under examination.
It would also help to describe the structural ‘function’ of the individual actors in their
varying positions in the network. Tie density is but one measure by which the researcher
can determine which actors identically occupy similar positions. So, although the
excessively hierarchical definition of ‘traditional’ organized crime common in the
United States is less appropriate in Britain, the identification of structurally similar
positions for individuals, such as ‘brokers’, within the network or networks remains
highly possible. Arguably, there are two basic alternative criteria against which tie density
might be judged:
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The first criterion is social cohesion. Actors are aggregated together into a position to the degree that they
are connected directly to each other by cohesive bonds. Positions so identified are called ‘cliques’ if
every actor is directly tied to every other actor in the position (i.e. maximal connection), or ‘social
circles’ if the analyst permits a less stringent frequency of direct contact, say, for example, that an actor
need have direct ties to only 80% of the position members to be included . . . The second criterion for
identifying network positions is structural equivalence. Actors are aggregated into a jointly occupied
position or role to the extent that they have a common set of linkages to the other actors in the system.
No requirement is imposed that the actors in a position have direct ties to each other. Thus, a
structurally equivalent position may or may not be a clique or circle, whereas a socially cohesive position
may contain actors with a quite distinct pattern of ties to the other positions. (Knoke and Kuklinski
1982: 19–20)

Measures of ‘centrality’ can usefully provide an index of a person’s accessibility and of

the number of links passing through him (Boissevain 1974: 41) so that those with a ‘high’
index measure are more likely to be identified as brokers and thus key network members.
However, researchers should be cautious in respect of the use of centrality measures
derived from law enforcement data because in what is an imperfect data capture
environment a high centrality score can be mistakenly ascribed to actors simply because
more is known about them than others in the network (Sparrow 1991: 256).
Although 30 years ago it was not unreasonable for Mitchell to postulate that there was
probably a limit to the number of people with whom an individual could be in direct and
regular contact (Mitchell 1969: 19–20) this assertion is less sustainable today. The
dramatic increase in use of telecommunications means that even if the number of
possible contacts is indeed finite in contemporary networks then it is probably limited
not by distance or number but by available time. Even though potential ‘range’ is thus
dramatically enhanced some individuals will continue to have only a few direct contacts
whilst others will have many. Thus ‘reachability’, or the ‘degree to which a person’s
behaviour is influenced by his relationships with others often turns on the extent to
which he can use these relationships to contact people who are important to him or alter-
natively, the extent to which people who are important to him can contact him through
these relationships’ (Mitchell 1969: 15).
Of course, it is important to look at the structural as well as the interactional aspects of
network links because influential relationships can operate through ‘several links of
dissimilar content . . . for example, from the point of view of the social behaviour of the
people in a personal network, the fact that A is linked to B in terms of kinship and B to C
in terms of occupational ties, may or may not affect the extent to which A can enlist C’s
services for some purpose or other’ (Mitchell 1969: 24). The essential accuracy of this
simple assertion is echoed by Hobbs who recognizes that ‘the connections between sets,
the relationships that lie at the core of serious crime groups, can be based upon familial,
interpersonal, geographic or commercial sets, and often some combination of some or
all of the above’ (Hobbs 1997: 22). Many observers, whether from a criminological, socio-
logical or social psychological background recognize the validity of looking at smaller
groups within larger networks (Erickson 1988: 106) whether they are described as
cliques, gangs, action-sets or factions (Boissevain 1974: 173). The importance of under-
standing why structural and interactional analysis should be conducted simultaneously is
most clearly demonstrated by the frequency and content of interaction between
individuals which closely corresponds to the degree of structuring evidenced by cliques.
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Thus it is possible to identify ‘. . . core members of a clique, who participate all the time,
primary members, who meet sometimes with the core and rarely alone, and secondary
members, who are on the fringe, as it were and participate infrequently’ (Boissevain
1974: 179; see also Scott 1991: 23; and Jackson et al. 1996: 87).

Conclusion
The search for conclusive evidence of the existence of extant national criminal networks
requires not simply the availability of usable data but the means with which to analyse it.
The use of social network analysis techniques, within a broader conceptual framework
constructed from a combination of Milgram’s powerful exposition of the ‘small-world’
problem, Boissevain’s discovery of ‘brokers’ and Granovetter’s ‘strength of weak ties’
thesis, offers a promising means of exploring the relational links that combine to form
whole networks. The subsequent development of a better understanding of the form of
‘organized’ crime in the United Kingdom at the start of the third millennium is thus a
realistic possibility.

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