Mitch Macdonald
Lecturer
- macdonaldm1@cardiff.ac.uk
- +44 (0)29 2087 5238
- Rm 1.22, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WA
- Available for postgraduate supervision
Overview
I'm a Lecturer in Quantitative Criminology in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. I study patterns in human or group behaviour which emerge & take shape through social interaction, or “social networks”. From this perspective, I do research into the criminal networks which make organized crime, criminal organizations, & illegal enterprise possible. I have various interests in criminal network properties:
- criminal network dynamics — scaling properties, cohesion & subgroups, multiplexity, etc.
- demographic change in criminal networks — aging, group persistence, etc.
- sample coverage in criminal networks — sample bias, representativeness, missing data & imputation, etc.
In general, I try to explain the within-group & the between-group variability in criminal networks, be they criminal organizations, transnational drug trafficking networks, or street-level illegal enterprises—irrespective variations in scale (i.e., whether the criminal organization is big or small), reach (i.e., whether the criminal enteprise is local or transnational), or other properties. To do so, I draw on theories in complexity science & sociology regarding scaling properties in criminal networks—group size, hierarchies, & concentrations in power.
... current research projects:
- The duality to criminal network structure — co-emergence in hierarchical & egalitarian structure in various samples
- Factions or cliques within criminal organizations
- Age structure in organized crime
- Age × period × cohort variations in gang membership in Montréal, Québec, 1993 - 2010
- Age × period × cohort variations in conviction rates in organized crime cases in Italy, 1982 - 2017
... supervision:
I welcome prospective PhD students to share proposals on projects in organized crime, illegal enterprise, or "criminal networks", generally—especially projects which put emphasis on theory & research design.
Biography
Employment
Lecturer in Quantitative Criminology, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, 2021–
Education
PhD, Simon Fraser University, 2022 (expected), Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Awards/Honours
Doctoral Fellow, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, Canada (2016–2020)
Teaching
SI0266: Analysing Social Change
Fall 2021
In this module, we cover repeated cross-sectional & panel research designs necessary to measure change over time. From panel surveys, we sample people or cohorts repeatedly over time to measure within- or between-person change. From repeat cross-sections, we observe whether survey response or social statistics vary over time through various data collection strategies—general population surveys, public administration records, social service statistics, & so on.
Analysing social change lets us obtain insights into big questions in the social sciences & social policy: "... has residential segregation led violence to endure in some neighbourhoods, but not others?"; "... do protests impact election results?"; "... do race-gender disparities in evictions reproduce poverty in urban neighbourhoods?"; "... does public sentiment on police change citizen crime-reporting behaviour?"; "... historically, does college completion have gender-specific effects on wages?"; etc.
For various reasons, studying change over time is incredibly important to social science research. For theory or hypothesis tests, we require research designs which measure change over time to establish cause-effect explanations. Furthermore, policy prescriptions require we can explain what causes social change – positive, negative, or otherwise – over time.
Supervision
CRIMINOLOGY
I can supervise postgraduate projects on organized crime, illegal enterprise, or "criminal networks" which incorporate theory & research designs in:
- network science
- complexity science
- demography
I'm happy to surpervise projects which put non-traditional data sources to use – be it public commission reports, text in traditional print sources like newspapers, etc. – to study organized crime or criminal networks. From those data sources, it's possible to systematically reconstruct datasets on criminal networks through narratives in commission reports, news coverage, etc.
Furthermore, I have intentions to use computer simulations & machine learning techniques to predict group dynamics in organized crime, so I'm happy to supervise students in this space too.
GENERAL
I can supervise students who have interests in "social interaction" or network science, more generally, regardless the topic. I'm happy to surpervise projects on social networks, big or small, where samples draw on traditional surveys, big data sources, or non-traditional data sources (narratives, qualitative interviews, etc.) to reconstruct interactions or relationships in social networks.
...
I'm happy to chat regarding supervision. You can contact me over email.