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Modelling the dynamics of Violent Gang-Crime: a Network approach

Project description

A network approach to tackle urban street-gang violence

Street violence is not a new phenomenon. It is an increasing social problem today, particularly in crowded cities. To control such risks more effectively, there is a need for new ways of predicting outbreaks and the formation of criminal gangs and alliances. However, present regulatory strategies have generally been geared toward offender or group focused methods, ignoring the fact that offenders or groups interact within internal systems. The EU-funded GANGNET project will address specific problems of co-offender formation and intergroup violence. It will unveil the theoretical and empirical structure of gang dynamics using innovative computation methods and new techniques from network theory for effective street-violence prediction.

Objective

GANGNET is a project motivated by two intertwined emergencies of contemporary EU urban landscape: (1) the emergence of stable co-offending groups (2) the rapid propagation of inter-group violence (e.g. “knife epidemics” in UK). The key of my research is the use of innovative techniques from network theory and computational methods to inform regulators with better gang-crime risk prediction and more effective containment strategies.

Relational networks are recognized as drivers of individual’s criminal activity: criminal groups are both organizations as well as social environments. For members of co-offending groups, interaction is both at group-level and at inter-group level. At the current state of art, little is known about the channel by which inter-personal links affect inter-group dynamics and trigger systemic phenomena. Therefore, it is unclear what individual-level factors EU policy-makers should monitor to control systemic urgencies such as the outbreak of group violence epidemics or formation of criminal alliances. Regulators contain crime via offender or groups-focused devices. However, as offenders and groups act within endogenous networks, unintended consequences such as increased inter-gang instability and violence can emerge as the result of spurious containment attempts.

The project uncovers the theoretical and empirical structure of gang dynamics by adopting a network perspective. The goal is to understand how individuals act upon the influence of a stratified social network and to what extent isolated behaviour from single individuals can trigger inter-group system-wide dynamics. The project is developed along three directions aiming to understand how: (1) interaction between incentive-driven offenders determine group-level activities (2) group-level activities can lead to systemically relevant phenomena that unfold through relational networks (3) develop synthetic metrics to measure effectiveness of individual or group based containment policies

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2020

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Coordinator

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 212 933,76
Address
TRINITY LANE THE OLD SCHOOLS
CB2 1TN CAMBRIDGE
United Kingdom

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Region
East of England East Anglia Cambridgeshire CC
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 212 933,76
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