Do court decisions hit the most central members of organised crime groups?

• In Event: Crime and Social Networks

Abstract

With this communication, we intend to present the outcomes of a study developed to contribute to the sentencing studies on organised crime, incorporating criminal network metrics, adapted from the social network analysis, as potential explanatory variables of the court decisions.
Data about offenders, victims, and court decisions were collected in a sample of court files related to organised groups with activities done in Portugal. In addition to the variables commonly included in sentencing studies, criminal network metrics, such as centrality measures, have been computed for 100 defendants, considering the outcomes of a content analysis of the court decisions.
Results show conviction is significantly more likely for older defendants and for those who belong to higher-density networks and enjoy higher centrality power. Results also show that the severity of the prison sentence (length of the sentence) is significantly higher for those with higher centrality power and does not vary with the density of the network nor with the defendant’s attributes like age, sex, and previous criminal record.

Authors

• Pedro Sousa, Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Crime Justice and Security (CJS); School of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Porto

• Ana Guerreiro, University of Maia; Research Unit in Criminology and Behavioral Sciences (UICCC/UMaia) & School of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Porto; Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Crime Justice and Security (CJS)