Information Extraction and Social Network Analysis of Criminal Sentences. A Sociological and Computational Approach

AutoreDeborah De Felice, Giovanni Giuffrida Giuseppe Giura, Vilhelm Verendel, Calogero G. Zarba
Pagine243-244
Information Extraction
and Social Network Analysis of Criminal Sentences.
A Sociological and Computational Approach
DEBO RAH DEFE LIC E, GIOVAN NI GIUFF RIDA
GIUS EPP E GIUR A, VIL HELM VER END EL, CA LOG ERO G. ZA RBA
SUMM ARY:1. Introduction – 1.1. Criminal Sentences from a Sociological Perspective
– 1.2. Outlineof This Work– 2. Data Collection –3. The Codebook – 4. Information
Extraction – 4.1. Information Extraction from Criminal Sentences – 4.2. Standard
Structure of an Italian Criminal Sentence – 4.3. The Finite State Transducers – 5.
Social Network Analysis – 5.1. A First Look: Pre-processing the Data – 5.2. Overview
of the Network – 5.3. A Central Core in the Giant Component 5.4. Community
Structure – 5.5. Important Nodes in the Network – 6. Conclusion
1. INT RODU CTI ON
A main objective of our research is to obtain a description of the socio-
economic environment characterizing a trial leading to a criminal sentence,
as well as the differences in the conduct of the trial between different juris-
dictional administrations.
In this paper we study the juridical response to organized crime activities
in Sicily1, Italy, by analyzing a corpus of criminal sentences using compu-
tational techniques of information extraction and social network analysis.
In particular, the analyzed criminal sentences were pronounced in the four
courthouses of Sicily from 2000 through 2006, and were declared irrevocable
for at least one defendant. A f‌irst element of originality of this paper is in
the choice of the source of sentences: criminal sentences are tools of social
regulation (although as outcome of a trial), and are used as a “magnifying
glass” to study mechanisms and contexts from which one can deduce the
D. De Felice and G. Giuffrida are assistant professors at the Department of Political and
social sciences of the University of Catania (Italy); G. Giura, PhD in Sociology and methods
of social sciences, works at the Department of European studies and international integration
of the University of Palermo (Italy); V. Verendel has a PhD in the Complex systems group
at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg (Sweden); C. Zarba, PhD, works
for Neodata Intelligence S.r.l.
1C. PENN ISI, G. G IURA,Un’analisi empirica della giurisprudenza sulla criminalità orga-
nizzata e di tipo maf‌ioso, in “Antigone”, 2009, n. 2-3, pp. 125-162.
“Informatica e diritto”, Vol. XXII, 2013, n. 1, pp. 243-261
XXXIX annata – Seconda Serie - Fasc. monografico S. Faro, N. Lettieri (a cura di), "Law and Computational Social Science", ESI, Napoli, 2013, 352 p.

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