NCJ Number
171367
Editor(s)
P Cromwell
Date Published
1996
Length
208 pages
Annotation
These 18 ethnographic studies on crime and criminality present the perspectives of burglars, drug smugglers, gang members, robbers, rapists, white-collar offenders, and other offenders regarding their motives, decision-making strategies, rationalizations, and prison experiences.
Abstract
Most of the studies were conducted in the United States; individual papers explain the process and problems involved in designing and conducting field research of active burglars, examine the relationship between lifestyles and decision-making in property offenders, and compare the attitudes and perspectives of thieves and drug addicts in Sweden to those of Swedish noncriminals. Additional papers consider factors associated with the choice of targets by residential burglars, the role of the nonprofessional fence in initiating and sustaining property crime, age-related changes in offender decision-making, the process by which white-collar offenders deny criminal intent, and the attitudes of physicians accused of Medicaid fraud. Further studies focus on the attitudes and decision-making processes of robbers, incarcerated rapists, a serial murderer, gang members, high-level drug dealers, and female drug offenders. Tables, figure, and chapter reference lists