Contacts, Opportunities, and Criminal Enterprise / / Carlo Morselli.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Morselli, Carlo,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©2005
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (210 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 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