Contacts, Opportunities, and Criminal Enterprise / Edition 2

by Carlo Morselli

Overview

Success in criminal enterprise largely depends on how offenders go about committing their crimes. An offender’s search for increasing financial returns and decreasing costs is mediated by the structure of his pool of useful and trustworthy contacts. In Contacts, Opportunities, and Criminal Enterprise, Carlo Morselli examines how business-oriented criminals who have personal networks designed to promote high numbers of diverse contacts achieve and maintain competitive advantages in their earning activities and overall criminal careers.

Based on two case studies of criminal careers in international cannabis smuggling and Cosa Nosta racketeering, the book proposes a social network framework to study the underlying social relationships influencing achievement in crime. Morselli further utilizes this relational approach to illustrate how survival and long-term endurance in criminal enterprise is achieved, and how criminals’ networks of contacts and opportunities can insulate them from potentially career-damaging forces – law enforcement, fellow criminals, etc. Contacts, Opportunities, and Criminal Enterprise is a much-needed assessment of criminal activity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802038111
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Publication date:	09/28/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.49(d)

About the Author

Carlo Morselli is a professor in the School of Criminology at l'Université de Montréal.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1 Conceptual Discrepancies
2 A Personal Network Framework for Criminal Enterprise
3 Sources and Method
4 Structuring Mr. Nice
5 Career Opportunities in the Cosa Nostra
6 Privileged Positioning and Access to Lethal Violence
7 Summary and Extensions
Appendix A: Contact Matrices for Marks' Importation Consignments
Appendix B: Contact Matrices for Gravano's Promotional Phases
Bibliography
Index