Abstract
The paper argues that kinship ties and sharing information on violent acts can be
interpreted as forms of ‘hostage-taking’ likely to increase cooperation among co-
offenders. The paper tests this hypothesis among members of two criminal groups,
a Camorra clan based just outside Naples, and a Russian Mafia group that moved
to Rome in the mid-1990s. The data consist of the transcripts of phone intercepts
conducted on both groups by the Italian police over several months. After
turning the data into a series of network matrices, we use Multivariate Quadratic
Assignment Procedure to test the hypothesis. We conclude that the likelihood of
cooperation is higher among members who have shared information about violent
acts. Violence has a stronger effect than kinship in predicting tie formation and thus
cooperation. When non-kinship-based mechanisms fostering cooperation exist,
criminal groups are likely to resort to them
No comments:
Post a Comment