Community, Contract and Aboriginal Policing

Criminal Networks

by

Vincent Lemieux, Ph.D.
Université Laval
vlemieux@sympatico.ca

Research and Evaluation Branch
Community, Contract and Aboriginal Policing Services Directorate
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Ottawa, March 2003

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Government of Canada.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Criminal Businesses and Networks
• The Characteristics of Criminal Networks
  Size of the Networks
  Loose Couplings and Weak Ties
  The Nature of Ties
  The Central Actors
  Communication and Control
  Redundancy in Networks
  The Various Roles in A Criminal Network
  Combatting Criminal Networks
  Self-Protection in Criminal Networks
• Limited Knowledge of Criminal Networks
• Some Strategic Elements
• Conclusion
• Works Cited
  

Introduction

This report on criminal networks is divided into three parts dealing with the following elements:
1) Criminal organizations are both networks and businesses. This report, however, deals more with criminal networks than with businesses.
2) Criminal organizations, when viewed as networks, have characteristics common to other social networks, but also have specific characteristics that largely relate to the fact that these organizations are criminal businesses.
3) The self-protection measures undertaken by criminal networks, as well as the limiting of knowledge, make combatting the networks difficult. The fact remains, however, that strategic elements for this fight have been suggested by criminal network specialists.

To obtain an electronic copy of the complete report (PDF), please send a request by e-mail to the Research and Evaluation Section (Community, Contract and Aboriginal Policing Services) of the RCMP research_evaluation@rcmp-grc.gc.ca