The good connections: A Network Analysis of organized crime, patronage, and local elites

So far, the application of network analysis to crime has been limited to the relationships within criminal networks. We build a novel network dataset by encoding information coming from the archive of the Italian Anti-mafia Commission, describing relationships of collusion and exchange of favours between mafia members and the political, economic and social elites in Sicily, the homeland of the Sicilian mafia. We apply network analysis techniques to study the "topological" role of mafia bosses and show that they strategically position themselves in the social network as an interface between the criminal and the legitimate world.