RAND_MR1382

specifically to the nature of the criminal enterprise. In some cases, these two roles
might overlap; in others, however, they will be quite distinct.
• Highlight and assess the operations of criminal networks. In effect, the analysis will
examine a case study of a criminal network that penetrated a legal institution—the
Bank of New York.
• Outline ways in which governments and law enforcement agencies can attack
networks more effectively. This requires an analysis of network vulnerabilities and
how these can be exploited.
Some Underlying Analytic Concepts
The Network. A network can be understood very simply as a series of nodes that are
connected. The nodes can be individuals, organizations, firms, or computers, so long as
they are connected in significant ways. The focus here, of course, is on networks that
originate and operate in order to obtain financial rewards through and from illicit
activities. As such, this analysis draws on three separate strands of research: social
network analysis, discussions of network business organizations, and previous work on
criminal organizations (work that departs significantly from the emphasis on formal
hierarchies that was long part of the dominant paradigm in the study of organized
crime).
Social Network Analysis. Social network analysis originated in several fields,
including anthropology, sociology, and social psychology. Perhaps the most important
of the early pioneers was J. L. Moreno, who, in the 1930s, developed the notion of a
“sociogram.” This was
a picture in which people (or more generally any social units) are represented as points in two-dimensional space,
and relationships among pairs of people are represented by lines linking the corresponding points. 11
The essence of this type of approach is its focus on “the relationships or ties between the
nodes or units in the network.” These ties can be based on a variety of underpinning
factors, such as “kinship, material transactions, flow of resources or support, behavioral
interaction, group co-memberships, or the affective evaluation of one person by
another.” 12 In many cases there will be some kind of exchange between the nodes,
whether of commodities or services (broadly defined to include information and favors).
Whatever the basis for the relationship, however, the network concept emphasizes the
linkages among actors.
Accordingly, social network analysis examines such issues as the importance or
prominence of particular individuals in the network; the concept of centrality, i.e., the
individual in the network with the most—or most important—ties to other actors; the
notions of closeness and distance based on communication paths among the actors in
the network; the notion of cohesive subgroups, that is, subsets of actors among whom