One gang dies, another gains? The network dynamics of criminal group persistence*

• Author: Martin Bouchard,Yanick Charette,Marie Ouellet
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12194
• Date: 01 February 2019
• Published date: 01 February 2019

Received: 31 October 2017 Revised: 10 July 2018 Accepted: 16 July 2018

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9125.12194

ARTICLE

One gang dies, another gains? The network

dynamics of criminal group persistence*

Marie Ouellet1Martin Bouchard2Yanick Charette3

1Department of Criminal Justice and

Criminology,Georgia State University

2School of Criminology,Simon Fraser

University

3École de travailsocial et de criminologie,

UniversitéLaval

Correspondence

Marie Ouellet, Department of Criminal Justice

andCr iminology,Georgia State University,55

ParkPlace NE, Atlanta, GA 30303.

Email:mouellet@gsu.edu

∗Theaut hors are indebted to Pierre Tremblay

andMat hieu Charestfor offering constructive

suggestionson earlier versions of this article

andfor generously sharing their data. They

arealso t hankful forthe detailed and helpful

commentsprovided by Co-editor Jody Miller

andt hree anonymousreviewers.

Abstract

What leads a minority of criminal groups to persist over

time? Although most criminal groups are characterized by

short life spans, a subset manages to survive extended peri-

ods. Contemporary research on criminal groups has been

primarily descriptive and static, leaving important ques-

tions on the correlates of group persistence unanswered.

By drawing from competing perspectives on the relation-

ship between cohesion and group persistence, we apply

a longitudinal approach to examine the network dynam-

ics influencing the life span of criminal groups. We use

9 years of official data on the criminal and social net-

works of gang associates in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to

delineate criminal group boundaries and examine variation

in group duration. Our statistical approach simultaneously

considers within- and between-group attributes to isolate

how groups’ cohesion, as well as their embeddedness in the

wider gang structure, impacts survival. Our results show

that group survival is a function of their cohesion and

embeddedness. Yet,the relationship is not direct but moder-

ated by group size. Whereas large groups that adopt closed

structures are more likely to persist, small groups’ survival

depends on less cohesive and more versatile structures. In

the discussion, we consider the impact of these findings for

the continued understanding of group trajectories.

KEYWORDS

cohesion, criminal groups, duration, network dynamics

Criminology. 2019;57:5–33. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/crim © 2018 American Society of Criminology 5

6OUELLET ET AL.

1INTRODUCTION

Nearly a century ago, Thrasher (1927) detailed the transience of criminal groups across more than

1,000 street gangs, an appraisal that has since become familiar in the criminological literature (Reuter,

1983; Sarnecki, 2001; Short & Strodtbeck, 1965; Spergel, 1966; Warr, 1996). As a whole, this liter-

ature documents the impermanent and unstable nature of criminal groups, with scholars finding that

although a subset of groups persists overtime, most are characterized by short life spans. The ephemeral

nature of groups has been well established across time and space. In Stockholm, Sweden, members of

criminal groups frequently switched affiliation, precluding the formation of stable entities (Sarnecki,

2001). Similarly, in the United States, co-offending groups rarely were found to survive beyond a sin-

gle criminal event (Warr, 1996). Even among a sample of active gangs in Chicago, Illinois, few were

observed across all time periods (Papachristos, 2009).

Research findings have shown that criminal groups end at a high rate, but fundamental questions

on what leads the majority to desist, and only a subset to persist, remain unclear. An understanding

of these questions has important implications, with continuity in such groups found to be associated

with continued, serious criminal activity (Melde & Esbensen, 2014; Pyrooz, Turanovic, Decker, &

Wu, 2016). Theoretically, the questionalso has relevance for existing perspectives that have advanced

competing claims for the properties that attenuate or enhance a group's longevity.In general, dominant

perspectives contend that a group's cohesion moderates its duration. Differences emerge, however, in

regard to the direction of this relationship. On the one side, prominent gang scholars have suggested

that groups’ cohesion is positively associated with their survival. In its most basic form, these schol-

ars have argued that cohesion promotes group survival because it enhances a group's ability to retain

existing members. This perspective is reflected in early assessments of criminal group duration (e.g.,

Jansyn, 1966; Klein & Crawford, 1967). It can also be found underlying local, national, and interna-

tional policing efforts, with targeting strategies often aimed at destabilizing a group's cohesion, thereby

disrupting interactions and criminal group activity (Bright, 2015; Hennigan & Sloane, 2013).

On the other side, some scholars have advanced the thesis that cohesion restricts a group's duration.

The findings from this body of research have highlighted that group survival requires two competing

obligations: the need to recruit new members and the need to retain existing members. From this per-

spective, increases in cohesion can help retain membership, but too much cohesion can hinder a group's

ability to bring in new recruits, leading to stagnation and its eventual demise (see Shi, Dokshin, Genkin,

& Brashears, 2017). At the core of this hypothesis is the recognition that groups are embedded in a

larger social environment and must competewit h other organizationsto recr uit and retain membership.

Thus, survival depends on creating a balance between keeping open channels for recruits and creating

the necessary cohesion to maintain membership. Although this thesis has primarily been advanced by

scholars in the literature on social movements and voluntary organizations, it may apply equally to

criminal groups, which are often spatially concentrated in dense, urban areas (Curry & Spergel, 1988;

Short & Strodtbeck, 1965; Vigil, 1988, 2002) and frequently interact with one another (Descormiers

& Morselli, 2011; Fleisher, 2005; Tenti & Morselli, 2014).

Absent from these competing perspectives on cohesion and persistence are cross-comparisons using

empirical data on criminal groups. In much of the literature on criminal group persistence and cohe-

sion, researchers have drawn inferences from individual-level studies. For instance, Pyrooz, Sweeten,

and Piquero (2013) showed that embedded gang members are more likelyto delay their desistance from

the gang compared with their less embedded counterparts. Among a sample of general co-offenders,

Charette and Papachristos (2017) found similar results, showing that network embeddedness, as mea-

sured by connectivity, increased stability in co-offending relations. Yet, substantially less attention has

been paid to the group-level mechanisms linking cohesion and group persistence, an omission that