Growth and Containment of a Hierarchical Criminal Network

We model the hierarchical evolution of an organized criminal network via antagonistic recruitment and pursuit processes. Within the recruitment phase, a criminal kingpin enlists new members into the network, who in turn seek out other affiliates. New recruits are linked to established criminals according to a probability distribution that depends on the current network structure. At the same time, law enforcement agents attempt to dismantle the growing organization using pursuit strategies that initiate on the lower level nodes and that unfold as self-avoiding random walks. The global details of the organization are unknown to law enforcement, who must explore the hierarchy node by node. We halt the pursuit when certain local criteria of the network are uncovered, encoding if and when an arrest is made; the criminal network is assumed to be eradicated if the kingpin is arrested. We first analyze recruitment and study the large scale properties of the growing network; later we add pursuit and use numerical simulations to study the eradication probability in the case of three pursuit strategies, the time to first eradication and related costs. Within the context of this model, we find that eradication becomes increasingly costly as the network increases in size and that the optimal way of arresting the kingpin is to intervene at the early stages of network formation. We discuss our results in the context of dark network disruption and their implications on possible law enforcement strategies.Comment: 16 pages, 11 Figures; New title; Updated figures with color scheme better suited for colorblind readers and for gray scale printin

Transit: An analysis of networked criminal groups and criminal opportunities at transit ports

Like the path of many contraband commodities, trafficked cultural objects cross countless legal borders and intersect with the legitimate market world at a number of critical transit junctures, which supports the concept of a single “grey” market. These transit settings, where different elements of trafficking networks must converge, are sites of vulnerability for criminals and opportunity for law enforcement intervention. For this discussion, the case study of Subhash Kapoor’s trafficking network will be used as a frame of reference throughout the essay to support the idea that a port, as an interface in the global supply chain, is a critical site for analysis and understanding of international trafficking in cultural objects. What follows is a discussion of conceptualisations of organised crime in late modernity, a spatial analysis of the global cultural heritage trade, and an overview of the securitisation and role of sea ports in trade

Sport and Crime

The publisher granted Brunel University London a permission to archive this article in BURA.Sport and crime possess the power to stir emotion and arouse debate; most people have opinions on both. Many believe a relationship exists between the two but as Francis and Braggins contend, the relationship between sport and crime is complex. For some, sport is a bastion of physical prowess and moral virtue; abiding by the rules and playing fair is considered a vehicle to encourage the wayward to veer from potential deviance or to rehabilitate offenders. A surfeit of programs designed to use sport as a method of crime control currently exist. However, sport itself contains many paradoxes and in some cases has become a realm for criminal behavior: corruption, bribery, doping, discrimination, violence, hooliganism, and a host of other undesirable behaviors are all evidenced in the delivery and practice of sport. Thus, the Hydra-headed character of sport makes the correlate between sport and crime a sometimes controversial milieu

Fundamental Moral Orientations: Implications for Values-Based Leadership

The true values-based leader seeks to produce an equitable balance between pursuing self-interest and serving the broader community. Values-based leaders recognize that they must take care of themselves to have the capacity and energy to take care of others

Who is my neighbour? Understanding indifference as a vice

Indifference is often described as a vice. Yet who is indifferent; to what; and in what way is poorly understood, and frequently subject to controversy and confusion. This paper proposes a framework for the interpretation and analysis of ethically problematic forms of indifference in terms of how different states of indifference can be either more or less dynamic, or more or less sensitive to the nature and state of their object