Kontaktnät, centrala figurer, tidigare kriminalitet och uppgifter inom nätverket: en rättssociologisk undersökning om den sociala nätverksanalysens applicerbarhet på studier av kriminella nätverk

Sammanfattning: The social network analysis is a method on studying social relations which is becoming more and more popular on the arena of social science. This thesis examines, in the perspective of sociology of law, how well the above mentioned method can be used on studying criminal networks which are specialized on narcotic crimes. The basic idea for this thesis is that criminal networks are often based on the same foundations when thinking of structure and organization. The method being used to investigate this hypothesis is qualitative text analysis. Four distinctive features were identified among the studied networks. They are as follows: network, central individuals, earlier crime and tasks within the network. These commonalties are all based on social relations which should make the social network analysis an excellent method of studying and understanding criminal networks. The result is being analyzed and understood with the perspective of norm pluralism and the theory of differential association, with the focus on norm systems and the transfer of knowledge on crime between network members. The knowledge about criminal network and the embedded relations could lead to a bigger understanding on how they operate and may in the long run contribute to the crime prevention work.