Drug supply networks: a systematic review of the organizational structure of illicit drug trade

This study presents a systematic review of research using social network analysis to document the structure of organized crime groups involved in drug trafficking. Our first objective is to determine whether the balance of evidence supports the argument that organized crime groups are loosely struct...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Crime science 2017-12, Vol.6 (1), p.1, Article 2
Main Authors: Bichler, Gisela, Malm, Aili, Cooper, Tristen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beyond 'What Works': Advancing Understanding of Crime through Systematic Reviews
Community and Environmental Psychology
Criminology and Criminal Justice
Drug trafficking
Human capital
Law and Criminology
Organizational structure
Organized crime
Signal,Image and Speech Processing
Social capital
Social network analysis
Systematic review
Systems and Data Security
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study presents a systematic review of research using social network analysis to document the structure of organized crime groups involved in drug trafficking. Our first objective is to determine whether the balance of evidence supports the argument that organized crime groups are loosely structured. Second, we aim to assess the relative importance of targeting individuals high in social capital (structural position) versus human capital (access to resources) in efforts to disrupt operations. Examining 34 studies, describing 54 illicit drug supply networks, we find five implications for anti-drug policy, and propose seven recommendations to facilitate meta-analysis and improve cross-network comparison.
ISSN:2193-7680
2193-7680
DOI:10.1186/s40163-017-0063-3