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.
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.
Morselli's Project Siren data set encompasses actors embedded in an illicit network for the stolen-vehicle exportation (or ringing) operations. The data was obtained within a larger investigative setting between 1993 and 2005 under Project CERVO. As Morselli (2009) points out 'The main objective of this task force was to monitor and control the exportation of stolen luxury vehicles from the Port of Montreal. Shipments associated with Siren were tracked to Ghana, Russia, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, and Switzerland. In total, 35 cars were retrieved. Cooperation between law-enforcement and border/insurance agencies was the unique feature, with the latter supplying documents from maritime shipping companies that contained information on suspect cargo and the identities of individuals or enterprises involved in their transportation. The data presented here was reconstructed from Morselli's book by researchers and maintainers of the UCINET Software site (https://sites.google.com/site/ucinetsoftware). However, the author provides an in detail description of his data collection process on his 2000 book Inside Criminal Networks. Morselli used degree centrality and betweenness centrality to determine brokerage qualifications in the Siren network when applied to ringing operations by examining the network by removing specific participants over different permutations. The ultimate goal was to find how broker extraction would disrupt the network and crime-commission process.
Morselli's Project Siren data set encompasses actors embedded in an illicit network for the stolen-vehicle exportation (or ringing) operations. The data was obtained within a larger investigative setting between 1993 and 2005 under Project CERVO. As Morselli (2009) points out 'The main objective of this task force was to monitor and control the exportation of stolen luxury vehicles from the Port of Montreal. Shipments associated with Siren were tracked to Ghana, Russia, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, and Switzerland. In total, 35 cars were retrieved. Cooperation between law-enforcement and border/insurance agencies was the unique feature, with the latter supplying documents from maritime shipping companies that contained information on suspect cargo and the identities of individuals or enterprises involved in their transportation. The data presented here was reconstructed from Morselli's book by researchers and maintainers of the UCINET Software site (https://sites.google.com/site/ucinetsoftware). However, the author provides an in detail description of his data collection process on his 2000 book Inside Criminal Networks. Morselli used degree centrality and betweenness centrality to determine brokerage qualifications in the Siren network when applied to ringing operations by examining the network by removing specific participants over different permutations. The ultimate goal was to find how broker extraction would disrupt the network and crime-commission process.