Montreal Street Gangs Network
Introduction
This data set consists of 35 nodes creating an undirected network of positive and negative relationships between gangs in Montreal. The file MONTREALGANG_ATTR describes each node’s name, class (organization), number of allegiances, ethnicity, territories, any allegiance to the American Crips or Bloods, gang ethnicity, and territory. Allegances are coded on a scale of 1-3; ‘1’ represents Bloods, ‘2’ represents Crips, and ‘3’ represnts Other. Ethnicities are coded on a scale of 1-5; ‘1’ represents Hispanic gangs, ‘2’ represents Afro-Canadian gangs, ‘3’ represents Caucasian gangs, ‘4’ represents Asian gangs, and ‘5’ represnts no ethnic association or mixed. Territories are coded on a scale of 1-3; ‘1’ represents Downtown, ‘2’ represnts East, and ‘3’ repreesnts West.
Abstract
In Montreal, the majority of street gangs fall into two larger coalitions: Les Bleus and Les Rouges- Canadian versions of the popular American Crips and Bloods, although police believe that this division was created through sensationalization of media outlets and a simplistic representation of the gangs. In fact, it is unclear if there is any connection at all between the Montreal gangs and their American namesake. Karine Descormiers and Carlo Morselli attempt to use network analysis in their article, ‘Alliances, Conflicts, and Contradictions in Montreal’s Street Gang Landscape,’ to understand the intergang relations in Montreal and their similarities to the traditional American Crips and Bloods Rivalry. Authors designed an analytical framework based on the perspectives of 20 young offenders in low security youth detention centers in Montreal to study the structure and framework of the gangs present in the city. Descormiers and Morselli used traditional topographical measures such as density and degree centrality to determine impact of observed positive and negative links within the network, furthermore how those interactions translate to violence within and outside of their consortiums. Gangs were determined to have similar structure regardless of their affiliation with Les Bleus and Les Rouges, but it is clear that relational structure between the gangs differs greatly across groups- with the presence of positive and negative relations being equally as prevalent. Alliance and rivalries are a defining characteristic of the gang networks in Montreal being explained by alliances between ethnic groups and economic similarities, with violence occurring significantly more frequently between outgroups.
Code Book
| edge_class | is_bimodal | is_directed | is_dynamic | is_weighted | definition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| affiliation | FALSE | FALSE | FALSE | FALSE | Undirected and binary ties refering to affiliaioin between gangs. These data have been reconstrustructed by members of the UCINET team from Karine Descomiers and Carlo Morselli’s 2011 article ‘Alliances, Conflicts and Contraditions in Montreal’s Street Gang Landscape’, which appeared on the International Criminal Justice Review. |
Sociogram
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Citation
Kescormiers K, Morselli C (2011). “Alliances, Conflicts, and Contradictions in Montreal’s Street Gang Landscape.” International Criminal Justice Review, 1, 297-314.
