Schaefer, D. R., Davidson, K. M., Haynie, D. L., & Bouchard, M. (2020). Network integration within a prison-based therapeutic community. Social Networks, 64, 16-28.
Prison-based therapeutic communities (TCs) are a widespread, effective way to help incarcerated individuals address substance abuse problems. The TC philosophy is grounded in an explicitly relational paradigm that entails building community and conditioning residents to increasingly take responsibility for leadership therein. Although TCs are based on cultivating a network that continuously integrates new residents, many...
Bouchard, M., Soudijn, M., & Reuter, P. (2020). Conflict Management in High-Stakes Illegal Drug Transactions. The British Journal of Criminology, 1-20.
We draw from aspects of Black’s theory of conflict management to (1) provide a description of the types of disputes occurring at the highest levels of the drug trade and (2) examine whether conflicts that end in violence differed from those that found a peaceful resolution. A mixed-methods approach was used to analyse 33 incidents...
Reale, K. S., Bouchard, M., Lim, Y. L., Cook, A. N., & Hart, S. D. (2020). Are Psychopathic Traits Associated with Core Social Networks? An Exploratory Study in University Students. Social Psychology Quarterly, 1-20.
In a sample of 480 university students, we examined associations between self-ratings of psychopathic traits, made using the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP; Cooke et al. 2012), the Psychopathic Personality Inventory: Short Form (PPI: SF; Lilienfeld and Hess 2001), and self-ratings of the structure of their core social networks (i.e., best friends, intimates). Results...
McCuish, E., Bouchard, M., & Beauregard, E. A. (2020). Network‑Based Examination of the Longitudinal Association Between Psychopathy and Offending Versatility. Journal of Quantitative Criminology.
Objectives Concerns about the value of features of psychopathy to explanations of offending may be driven by challenges with testing this relationship as opposed to the construct’s limited predictive validity. The current study introduced psychopathology network modeling as an analytic strategy capable of addressing these challenges through a more nuanced description of the structural and...
Bouchard, M. (2020). Collaboration and Boundaries in Organized Crime: A Network Perspective. Crime and Justice, 49(1).
A network approach helps us better specify and model collaboration among people involved in organized crime. The focus on collaboration raises the boundary specification problem: Where do criminal organizations start, where do they end, and who is involved? Traditional approaches sometimes assume the existence of simple, rigid structures when complexity and fluidity are the norms....
Kusz, J., & Bouchard, M. (2019). Nymphet or Lolita? A Gender Analysis of Online Child Pornography Websites. Deviant Behavior, 1-9.
Previous research on child pornography has primarily focused on the consumption and distribution of the material – the consumer side. In this study, we turn the focus on the content of child pornography websites. While some research assessed the content, there was little consideration of gender. This paper assesses whether gender is important in correlating...
McCuish, E., Bouchard, M., Beauregard, E., & Corrado, R. (2019). A Network Approach to Understanding the Structure of Core Symptoms of Psychopathic Personality Disturbance in Adolescent Offenders. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 47(9), 1467-1482.
A central aim of research on psychopathic personality disturbance (PPD) involves identifying core features of the construct. Such aims have been addressed primarily through prototypicality studies and research using item-response theory. More recently, the logic of social network analysis was extended to psychopathology research to examine which symptoms are most central to PPD networks. Such...
Bouchard, M., Morselli, C., Macdonald, M., Gallupe, O., Zhang, S., & Farabee, D. (2019). Estimating Risks of Arrest and Criminal Populations: Regression Adjustments to Capture–Recapture Models. Crime & Delinquency, 65(13), 1767-1797.
The size of criminal populations is unknown, and policy decisions are typically based only on the number of offenses and offenders that come to the attention of the criminal justice system. However, the size of criminal populations may follow different trends than what is observed in official data. We use a regression-adjusted capture–recapture model to...
Levey, P., & Bouchard, M. (2019). The emergence of violent narratives in the life-course trajectories of online forum participants. Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology, 6(3), 1-28.
Online discussion forums have been identified as an online social milieu that may facilitate the radicalization process, or the development of violent narratives for a minority of participants, notably youth. Yet, very little is known on the nature of the conversations youth have online, the emotions they convey, and whether or how the sentiments expressed...
Aldridge, J., & Bouchard, M. (2019). Leveraging the value of online data and methods: drug policy research at the cutting edge. International Journal of Drug Policy.
Is the online domain really so terribly important for drug policy researchers to engage with in order to study drugs and drug policy? Is illicit drug use not, after all, an ‘offline’ activity enacted by people with their offline identities as they buy, sell and consume – not digital – but physical psychoactive substances? With...
Ouellet, M., Bouchard, M., & Charette, Y. (2019). One gang dies, another gains? The network dynamics of criminal group persistence. Criminology, 57(1), 5-33.
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 periods. Contemporary research on criminal groups has been primarily descriptive and static, leaving important questions on the correlates of group persistence unanswered. By drawing from competing perspectives on...
Kreager, D. A., Bouchard, M., De Leon, G., Schaefer, D. R., Soyer, M., Young, J. T., & Zajac, G. (2018). A Life Course and Networks Approach to Prison Therapeutic Communities. In D. F. Alwin, D. H. Helmlee, & D. A. Kreager (Eds.), Social Networks and the Life Course (pp. 433-451). Cham: Springer.
Within criminology, life course theory and research have linked positive role transitions (e.g., marriage, parenthood, and employment) with criminal desistance over time. Simultaneously, studies suggest that high-risk offenders are unlikely to enter or remain committed to such transitions, challenging interventions based on life course principles. Prison-based therapeutic communities (TCs) offer a potential exception to this...
Ouellet, M., & Bouchard, M. (2018). The 40 Members of the Toronto 18: Group Boundaries and the Analysis of Illicit Networks. Deviant Behavior, 39(11), 1467-1482.
Increases in studies on the network dynamics of crime groups and co-offending has led many scholars to reflect on potential measurement biases arising from a reliance on official data sources. A problem of official data is that it forces boundaries on criminal groups that are much more fluid and dynamic than they seem. Drawing from...
Bouchard, M., Gallupe, O., Dawson, K., & Anamali, M. (2018). No place like home? Availability, opportunity, and substance use in adolescence. Journal of Youth Studies, 21(6), 747-764.
Surveys on drugs and alcohol availability show that (1) alcohol is much more easily accessible than both cannabis and tobacco, and that (2) many adolescents still do not find it ‘easy’ to access those substances. In the current study, we examine the importance of both opportunity and availability in assessing substance use in adolescence. Our...
Jozaghi, E., Buxton, J. A., Thomson, E., Marsh, S., Gregg, D., & Bouchard, M. (2018). Building new approaches to risk reduction with social networks and people who smoke illegal drugs from participatory community-based research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 17(1), 1-10.
Background: Global cases of overdose-related deaths attributed to synthetic opioids are reaching epidemic proportion in many jurisdictions. While the main focus of health agencies and the different levels of government has been to combat the cases linked to injection drug use, the deaths attributed to smoking illegal drugs have not gained the same attention. Moreover, little...
Bouchard, M., Dawson, K. L., & Anamali, M. (2018). Waiting for the Right One: The Role of Social Proximity and Location in the Decision to Use Cannabis for the First Time. Journal of Drug Issues, 48(4), 625-644.
The study examines the social context of a cannabis offer, an outcome rarely examined in research on substance use. Drawing from a survey conducted among 15-year-old students in a mid-sized Canadian city, we examine (a) the differences between three types of users (immediate, late, and nonusers) and (b) the factors associated with accepting a cannabis...
Nash, R., Bouchard, M., & Malm, A. (2018). Twisting trust: Social networks, due diligence, and loss of capital in a Ponzi scheme. Crime, Law and Social Change, 69(1), 67-89.
This paper examines a pre-planned fraud which ran undetected for more than five years and deceived 2285 investors for $240 million. We seek to uncover the effects of trust in social ties and conducting due diligence on 1) an investor’s initial amount of investment and 2) their overall loss of capital. Using data from a...
Kreager, D. A., Young, J. T. N., Haynie, D. L., Bouchard, M., Schaefer, D. R., & Zajac, G. (2017). Where “old heads” prevail: Inmate hierarchy in a men’s prison unit. American Sociological Review, 82(4), 685-718.
Research on inmate social order, a once-vibrant area, receded just as U.S. incarceration rates climbed and the country’s carceral contexts dramatically changed. This study returns to inmate society with an abductive mixed-methods investigation of informal status within a contemporary men’s prison unit. We collected narrative and social network data from 133 male inmates housed in...
Hashimi, S., & Bouchard, M. (2017). On to the next one? Using social network data to inform police target prioritization. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 40(4), 768-782.
Purpose: Target prioritization is routinely done among law enforcement agencies, but the criteria to establish which targets will lead to the most crime reduction are neither systematic, nor do they take into account the networks in which offenders are embedded. The purpose of this paper is to propose network capital as a guide for prioritization...
Ouellet, F., & Bouchard, M. (2017). Only a Matter of Time? The Role of Criminal Competence in Avoiding Arrest. Justice Quarterly, 34(4), 699-726.
While prior research has shown that the probability of detection plays a role in the decision-making of many offenders, much less is known on offenders’ relative success in avoiding arrest. In this study, we draw from detailed criminal career data on 172 offenders involved in lucrative criminal activities to examine the role of criminal competence...