Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Measuring UK crime gangs: a social network problem

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Social Network Analysis and Mining Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper describes the output of a study to tackle the problem of gang-related crime in the UK; we present the intelligence and routinely-gathered data available to a UK regional police force, and describe an initial social network analysis of gangs in the Greater Manchester area of the UK between 2000 and 2006. By applying social network analysis techniques, we attempt to detect the birth of two new gangs based on local features (modularity, cliques) and global features (clustering coefficients). Thus for the future, identifying the changes in these can help us identify the possible birth of new gangs (sub-networks) in the social system. Furthermore, we study the dynamics of these networks globally and locally, and have identified the global characteristics that tell us that they are not random graphs—they are small world graphs—implying that the formation of gangs is not a random event. However, we are not yet able to conclude anything significant about scale-free characteristics due to insufficient sample size. A final analysis looks at gang roles and develops further insight into the nature of the different link types, referring to Klerks’ ’third generation’ analysis, as well as a brief discussion of the potential UK policy applications of this work.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/.

References

  • Albert R, Barabási AL (2002) Statistical mechanics of complex networks. Rev Mod Phys 74(1):47–91

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Albert R, Albert I, Nakarado GL (2004) Structural vulnerability of the North American Power Grid. Phys Rev E 69(2)

  • Aldridge J, Medina-Ariza J, Ralphs R (2008) Street Gangs, Migration and Ethnicity, Willan, chap Dangers and Problems of Doing ’Gang’ Research in the UK, pp 31–46

  • Andamic LA, Lukose RM, Huberman B (2003) Handbook of graphs and networks: from the genome to the internet, chap Local Search in Unstructured Networks, Wiley pp 295–317

  • Baron SW, Tindall DB (1993) Network structure and delinquent attitudes within a Juvenile Gang. Soc Netw 15(3):255–273

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barrows J, Huff CR (2009) Gangs and Public Policy: Constructing and Deconstructing Gang Databases. Criminol Public Policy 8(4):675–703

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Batchelor S (2009) Girls, gangs and violence: Assessing the evidence. Probat J 56(4):399–414

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • BBC News (2003) Gangs and guns - who takes the rap? http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/have_your_say/2003/01/06/gun_crime.shtml. Accessed 01 May 2015

  • BBC News (2004) Gun gang members ‘die by age 24’. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/3907049.stm. Accessed 01 May 2015

  • BBC News (2010) Greater Manchester gun crime down by 20%. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-11563463. Accessed 01 May 2015

  • Bjerregaard B, Lizotte AJ (1995) Gun ownership and gang membership. J Crim Law Criminol 86(1):37–58

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borgatti SP, Everett MG (2000) Models of core/periphery structures. Soc Netw 21(4):375–395

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bricknell S (2008) Criminal use of handguns in Australia. Australian Institute of Criminology, no, Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, p 361

  • Bullock K, Tilley N (2002) Shootings, gangs and violent incidents in manchester: developing a crime reduction strategy. Crime Reduction Research Series CRRS13, UK Home Office

  • Bullock K, Tilley N (2009) Evidence-based policing and crime reduction. Policing 3(4):381–387

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burnap P, Williams ML, Sloan L, Rana OF, Housley W, Edwards A, Knight V, Procter R, Voss A (2014) Tweeting the terror: modelling the social media reaction to the Woolwich terrorist attack. Soc Netw Anal Mining 4(1):206

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calvó-Armengol A, Zenou Y (2004) Social networks and crime decisions: the role of social structure in facilitating delinquent behavior. Int Econ Rev 45(3):939–958

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calvó-Armengol A, Verdier T, Zenou Y (2007) Strong and weak ties in employment and crimes. J Pub Econ 91(1–2):203–233

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clauset A, Shalizi CR, Newman MEJ (2009) Power-law distributions in empirical data. SIAM Rev 51(4):661–703

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Costa LF, Rodrigues FA, Travieso G, Villas Boas PR (2007) Characterization of complex networks: a survey of measurements. Adv Phys 56(1):167–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duijn PAC, Kashirin V, Sloot PMA (2014) The relative ineffectiveness of criminal network disruption. Sci Reports 4(4238). doi:10.1038/srep04238

  • Ferrara E, De Meo P, Catanese S, Fiumara G (2014) Detecting criminal organizations in mobile phone networks. Exp Syst Appl 41(13):5733–5750

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Golding B, McClory J (2008) Getting to the point—Reducing gun and knife crime in Britain: lessons from abroad. Tech. rep, Policy Exchange. ISBN 978-1-906097-39-4

  • Goldstein ML, Morris SA, Yen GG (2004) Problems with fitting to the power-law distribution. Eur Phys J B Conden Matter Comp Syst 41(2):255–258

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hales G, Lewis C, Silverstone D (2006) Gun Crime: the market in and use of illegal firearms. Home Office Research Study 298, UK Home Office

  • Hallsworth S, Silverstone D (2009) ‘That’s life innit’ A British perspective on guns, crime and social order. Criminol Crim Just 9(3):359–377

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hansen LL (2005) Girl “Crew” members doing gender, boy “crew” members doing violence: an ethnographic and network analysis of Maria Hinojosa’s New York gangs. West Crim Rev 6(1):134–144

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill KG, Lui C, Hawkins JD (2001) Early precursors of gang membership: a study of Seattle Youth. Juvenile Justice Bulletin

  • Hughes LA (2005) Studying youth gangs: alternative methods and conclusions. J Contemp Crim Justice 21(2):98–119

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hutchins CE, Benham-Hutchins M (1995) Hiding in plain sight: criminal network analysis. Comput Math Organ Theory 16(1):89–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson MO (2010) Social and economic networks. Princeton University Press

  • Jacobs JB (2009) Gang databases: context and questions. Criminol Public Policy 8(4):705–709

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klerks P (2001) The network paradigm applied to criminal organizations. Connections 24(3):53–65

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu W, Pellegrini M, Wang X (2014) Detecting communities based on network topology. Sci Reports 4(5739)

  • Lo TW (2011) Triadization of youth gangs in Hong Kong. Br J Criminol 52(3):556–576

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Newman MEJ (2003) The structure and function of complex networks. SIAM Rev 45(2):167–256

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Oatley G, Crick T (2014a) Changing faces: identifying complex behavioural profiles. In: Proceedings of 2nd International Conference on Human Aspects of Information Security, Privacy and Trust (HAS 2014), Springer, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8533, pp 282–293

  • Oatley G, Crick T (2014b) Exploring UK Crime Networks. In: 2014 International Symposium on Foundations of Open Source Intelligence and Security Informatics (FOSINT-SI 2014), IEEE Press

  • Oatley G, Crick T (2014c) Measuring UK Crime Gangs. In: 2014 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2014), IEEE Press

  • Oatley G, Zeleznikow J, Leary R, Ewart B (2005) From links to meaning: a Burglary Data Case Study. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES 2005), Springer, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3684, pp 813–822

  • Oatley G, Ewart B, Zeleznikow J (2006a) Decision support systems for police: lessons from the application of data mining techniques to “soft” forensic evidence. Artif Intel Law 14(1–2):35–100

    Google Scholar 

  • Oatley G, McGarry K, Ewart B (2006b) Offender network metrics. WSEAS Trans Inform Sci and Appl 12(3):2440–2448

    Google Scholar 

  • Oatley G, Crick T, Howell R (2015) Data exploration with GIS viewsheds and social network analysis. In: Proceedings of 23rd GIS Research UK Conference (GISRUK 2015)

  • Orman G, Labatut V, Cherifi H (2011a) On accuracy of community structure discovery algorithms. J Converg Inform Technol 6(11)

  • Orman G, Labatut V, Cherifi H (2011b) Qualitative Comparison of Community Detection Algorithms. Digital Information and Communication Technology and Its Applications. Springer, Communications in Computer and Information Science, pp 265–279

  • Papachristos AV (2006) Studying Youth Gangs, chap Social Network Analysis and Gang Research: Theory and Methods, AltaMira Press

  • Papachristos AV (2009) Murder by structure: dominance relations and the social structure of Gang Homicide. Am J Sociol 115(1):74–128

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Patacchini E, Zenou Y (2008) The strength of weak ties in crime. Eur Econ Rev 52(2):209–236

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pitts J (2007) Reluctant Gangsters: Youth Gangs in Waltham Forest. University of Bedfordshire, Tech. rep

  • Pitts J (2008) Reluctant Gangsters: the changing face of youth crime. Willan

  • Procter R, Crump J, Karstedt S, Voss A, Cantijoch M (2013) Reading the riots: what were the police doing on Twitter? Polic Soc 23(4):413–436

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rombach M, Porter MA, Fowler JH, Mucha PJ (2014) Core-Periphery structure in networks. SIAM J Appl Math 74(1):167–190

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Rosvall M, Axelsson D, Bergstrom CT (2010) The map equation. Eur Phys J Spec Topics 178(1):13–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walsh P (2005) Gang War: the inside story of the Manchester Gangs. Milo Books

  • Watts DJ (2003) Small Worlds: the dynamics of networks between order and randomness. Princeton University Press

  • Watts DJ, Strogatz SH (1998) Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks. Nature 393(6684):440–442

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webb VJ, Ren L, Zhao J, He N, Marshall IH (2011) A comparative study of youth gangs in china and the United States: definition, offending, and victimization. Int Crim Just Rev 21(3):225–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright JD (2005) The constitutional failure of gang databases. Stanford J Civil Rights Civil Liberties

  • Xu J, Chen H (2005) Criminal network analysis and visualization. Commun ACM 48(6):100–107

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yan B, Gregory S (2012) Detecting community structure in networks using edge prediction methods. J Stat Mech 2012(P09008):

Download references

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the UK’s Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Sandpit on Gun Crime (September 2005, Warwickshire, UK), funded by the IDEAS Factory; and the assistance of Xcalibre, the Greater Manchester Police’s specialist gang crime task force.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing & Information Systems, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cardiff, CF5 2YB, UK

    Giles Oatley & Tom Crick

Authors
  1. Giles Oatley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tom Crick
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tom Crick.

Additional information

This article is a substantially extended and revised version of the authors’ ASONAM 2014 papers (Oatley and Crick 2014b, c), with an updated research and policy context, literature review and methodology, along with new data and analysis.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Oatley, G., Crick, T. Measuring UK crime gangs: a social network problem. Soc. Netw. Anal. Min. 5, 33 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-015-0265-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-015-0265-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation