A snowball's chance in hell: doing fieldwork with active residential burglars
The article presents a study of residential burglars, exploring specifically the factors they take into account when contemplating the commission of an offense. Criminologists long have recognized the importance of field studies of active offenders. Although generally granting the validity of such c...
| Beteiligte: | ; ; ; |
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| Medienart: | Druck Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Veröffentlicht: |
1992
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| In: |
Journal of research in crime and delinquency
Jahr: 1992, Band: 29, Heft: 2, Seiten: 148-161 |
| Journals Online & Print: | Lade...
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| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
| Schlagwörter: |
| Zusammenfassung: | The article presents a study of residential burglars, exploring specifically the factors they take into account when contemplating the commission of an offense. Criminologists long have recognized the importance of field studies of active offenders. Although generally granting the validity of such critiques, most criminologists have shied away from studying criminals, so to speak, in the wild. Although their reluctance to do so undoubtedly is attributable to a variety of factors, probably the most important of these is a belief that this type of research is impractical. A commonly suggested means of making initial contact with active offenders other than through criminal justice sources involves frequenting locales favored by criminals. This strategy, however, requires an extraordinary investment of time as the researcher establishes a street reputation as an "all right square" that can be trusted. The ex-offender hired to locate subjects for our project began by approaching former criminal associates. Some of these contacts were still "hustling," that is, actively involved in various types of crimes, whereas others either had retired or remained involved only peripherally through, for example, occasional buying and selling of stolen goods |
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| ISSN: | 0022-4278 |
