Can SNA be used to solve an obscure murder crime?
In my everlasting curiosity, I came across to the question
above. Can SNA be used to solve a murder crime where the police have no
information about it? As far as I'm concerned, the answer would be yes. But how
could an SN analysis be performed in a way that it really could address an
issue like this?
First of all, the police should put together a list of
suspects that were in the scene of the crime.
Then, the police should ask them some questions in order to try to
determine connections, and attributes. The survey should carry the questions
and, when applicable, possible answers below:
- Question (Q): Did you know the victim before?
- Possible answers (PA): Yes, No
- Q: What is your group age?
- Q: Here is the suspect list. Do you know anybody from this list? Please select all that apply.
- PA: Yes; No
- Q: If you answered yes in the first question, what was your relationship with the victim?
- PA: Very close; close; some closeness; not very close; acquaintances
- Q: Did you have any financial debt with the victim?
- PA: Yes; No
- Q: Would you be anyway financially benefited by his death?
- PA: Yes; No
- Q: Please, select the three people whom you most frequently socialize with. (provide a list of suspects)
After having made an investigation to make sure that the
information above are true, the second step is to run the information on the
UCINET application. I believe that using these measures in the Social Network
Analysis, the police could create some lines of work. Of course that the
analysis will not bring the guilty person, however it could help the police
with some clues in order to prove the guiltiness of someone. Furthermore, I
believe that, if well built, the analysis could be used in the judgment.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that SNA can be used to
solve an obscure murder crime.
1 comment:
You have come up with a very tempting (and amusing) idea. I like it, except for the fact that no one would answer the questions or, if they did, who'd believe them? So let's think about if there's a better way. If you do use a questionnaire, don't ask about suspects. Just telling people that these people are under suspicion will induce bias. So ask about their relationship with the victim. Although you don't go into network measures at all, perhaps there is a clever way that the victim's friendship network can be examined...
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