Searching For Influential Actors in Co-Offending Networks: The Recruiter

Abstract

The co-offending literature research has recently unraveled the possible existence of a specific class of offender commonly referred to as a "recruiter": one who recruits others who are younger or less experienced for the purpose of offending. Yet the available evidence has focused on small or non-representative samples, and has supplied a limited conceptual scope for explaining how instigation takes place within co-offending groups. We provide evidence from population-level arrest records over eight years in Sacramento, California (n = 80,245 offenders). Social network analysis is used to study how "crime ideas" are transmitted. We identified 1,092 recruiters, yet this subgroup is responsible for 6% of arrests in Sacramento and a disproportionate number of younger and less experienced recruits. The data suggest a pattern of recruitment specialization in specific crime categories and wider age differentials in against-persons rather than property crime categories. We contextualize the findings within Dawkin's (1976) meme theory as a conceptual framework for explaining how recruitment takes place, why "crime ideas" can be seen as units of imitation, and under which conditions they are subsequently replicated, reproduced, and evolve. Directions for future research are then considered, with an emphasis on crime control initiatives.

Highest Harm Crime “Recruiters” in a London Borough: a Case of Moving Targets

“…As far as we are aware, no previous analysis has calculated the CHI values for co-offenders, their networks, or (crucially) the key "recruiters" into those networks. The enhancement of targeting that this study provides by applying CHI scores builds on the previous work done without calculating harm severity (including van Mastrigt and Farrington 2011;Sarnecki 2001;Englefield and Ariel 2017), with identification of the recruiters suggesting that targeting them will be an effective use of police resources (Ariel et al 2019). Yet that conclusion may rest more on measures of harm than on measures of frequency, when both are distributed across populations of previously identified suspects.…”

“…This study examines a method of targeting offenders based on their relationship with other known offenders, as established based crime reports data. While this method has been used in California (Englefield and Ariel 2017), Sweden (Sarnecki 2001) and other countries, the present study appears to be the first to examine the method in London. The method identifies a small subset of prolific offenders who seem to recruit others into crime, as indicated by a higher than average number of co-offenders (each set defined as two or more persons appearing in the crime report in relation to the same offence) within a population of known offenders.…”

Targeting the Most Harmful Co-Offenders in Denmark: a Social Network Analysis Approach

“…Co-offenders were also found to produce substantially higher levels of crime counts compared with 'solo' offenders in Sacramento, California (e.g. Englefield and Ariel 2017). Despite this growing body of evidence, we suspect that most police departments do not (yet) strategically target co-offenders.…”

“…The term 'co-offending' (Reiss Jr. 1988) is used to identify different types of relationships between offenders in groups of two or more, including gangs and organised crime networks (Carrington 2002). We should emphasise that gang-related and organised crime represents a small proportion of all crimes that are committed by co-offenders (Englefield and Ariel 2017). Co-offending represents a wide range of 'criminal enterprises', and not just well-organised groups.…”

“…The most criminally active individuals, however, are also those with the highest level of centrality in a network (Haynie 2001;Lantz and Hutchison 2015). Englefield and Ariel (2017) used SNA to explore the interconnectivity of groups of co-offenders, showing that some crime categories are more likely to see offenders engage in the recruitment of younger and less-experienced offenders-narcotics distribution and auto theft, for example. To this extent, SNA-as a conceptual as well as a technical approach-can be applied in the search for the most harmful power few offending networks in Denmark.…”