“POSTCODE GANGS”

Some information on London street gangs and their territorial nature. Not yet “organised crime” but some links to drug distribution. Presumably there is some research on network development in the criminological literature?

THE PRUM TREATY

The link is to a report by the House of Lords European Committee on the Prum Treaty,which is mainly concerned with the exchange of data across borders to combat terrorism illegal immigration and crime. The signatories are Benelux, Germany, Austria, Spain and France. I picked up its existence in a piece in Private Eye [21st THE PRUM TREATY

CRIME IN NEW YORK CONTINUES TO FALL

Number of major felonies fallen for 17th successive year. Policing strategy seen as responsible. More on Operation Impact and hot-spot policing in New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/nyregion/27crime.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&emc=th

THOUSANDS SOUGHT OVER CHILD PORN

This piece from the BBC refers to “12,000 suspected members” of a network. It may be aceptable for journlists to declare them a network, but are they a network in criminological terms? Do we require horizontal connections as well as vertical ones?

SHADOWCREW

An identity theft network this time. Apologies for the pause in blogging for the last four weeks. Your blogmeister broke his arm for Christmas. Capital letters may be a little hit and miss for a while. This article refers to Opration Firewall and to a group called Shadowcrew. I will insert further links as I SHADOWCREW

WHITEHALL ACCUSED OF DRUG COVER-UP

Criticism of Home Office manipulation of the presentation of official statistics. Needless to say, the Home Office doesn’t see that it has done anything wrong. Unfortunately the Statistics Commission disagrees. These are statistics on drugs. There is a warning here for researchers.

MORE ON SHADOWCREW

A longer article from October. There is more on modus operandi and the nature of roles in the network here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3965975.stmIt describes a “borderless” “e-crime network” whose members don’t need to meet.