By Paul F. Cromwell, James N. Olson and Di Aunn W. Avary

Information from 30 active burglars in an urban Texas metropolitan area of 250,000 population formed the basis of an analysis of the extent to which residential burglars use rational processes to choose burglary targets and the environmental factors that affect their choices.

The analysis also focused on the role of drug use, marketing strategies for stolen property, and the deterrence provided by the criminal justice system. The burglars were recruited by three informants referred from local criminal justice agencies. A researcher drove with each burglar to residential sites previously burglarized, and the burglar discussed and evaluated each site. Findings showed that burglars are opportunistic and that burglaries can be reduced by increasing the difficulty of committing the burglary, reducing the potential gain, and providing the illusion that the residence is occupied.

Washington, DC: U.S. National Institute of Justice, 1990. 236p.

By George Rengert and John Wasilchick

Residential burglar perceptions were classified into spatial and temporal components that form their routine activities in order to understand criminal activities from the criminal's point of view.

Burglar informants were selected from a large inner city (Philadelphia), a mid-sized city (Wilmington, Delaware), and suburban areas between these two cities. Each informant was asked to construct time diaries noting the time they awoke and what time they performed different activities for the following day. After the "next day" diary was kept, informants were asked to keep a similar diary for a future time that included a burglary. The process of searching for a burglary site has properties in common with the spatial search process involved in the real estate market. The objective of burglars' spatial search was to locate the best possible burglary site. Information sources used in burglaries included newspapers, friends and other contacts, jobs, and spatial research. Different burglars used different search strategies, and no urgency was involved in locating a crime site. As burglars searched for homes to burglarize, a sequence of homes was viewed, each with a set of attributes and locational factors. Once a successful burglary was committed, the information gained from the experience reinforced positive images the burglar had about a specific community. This made the same community more likely to be chosen for subsequent burglaries. The impact of residential burglary on the urban infrastructure is discussed, and time is viewed as an important concept in defining opportunities for crime in terms of spatial accessibility.

Philadelphia: Temple University, Department of Criminal Justice, 1988. 187p.

By Richard T. Wright, Scott H. Decker and Gilbert Geis

Through extensive and candid interviews, the authors of this ground-breaking work have studied burglars' decision-making processes within the context of their streetlife culture. In this volume they present their findings in the areas of motivation, target selection, methods of entering and searching a residence, and methods of selling stolen goods, concluding with a discussion of the theoretical implications of their research.

Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996. 248p.

Edited by Philip C. Parnell and Stephanie C. Kane

The changes that are engulfing the world today - the fall of nation-states and dictatorships, migrations and border crossings, revolution, democratization, and the international spread of capital - call for new approaches to the subject of crime. Anthropologists engage a variety of methods to answer that call in Crime's Power . Their view of crime extends into the intimacies of everyday life as war transforms personal identities, the violence of a serial killer inhabits paintings, and as the feel of imprisonment reveals society's potentials. Moving beyond the fixities of law, this book explores the nature of crime as an expression of power across the spectrum of human differences.

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 310p.