NCJ Number
176367
Date Published
1998
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This report discusses how stolen goods are bought and sold and considers how the market for stolen goods can be weakened to reduce acquisitive crime.
Abstract
The 1994 British Crime Survey (BCS) asked people if they had bought stolen goods and gathered information separately from in-depth interviews with a sample of burglars, other thieves and handlers. Eleven percent of BCS respondents admitted to having bought stolen goods in the past 5 years and during that same period nearly half of 16- to 24-year-old males had been offered or bought stolen goods. For the novice thief, the success or failure to convert stolen property into cash appeared to play an important part in whether they continued to offend. Property marking did not deter thieves from stealing marked items or deter others from buying and selling marked goods. Thieves repeatedly targeted small business owners asking them to buy stolen goods. Living in a household where the head was self-employed significantly increased the likelihood of buying stolen goods. Tables, references