Establishing Connections: Gender, Motor Vehicle Theft, and Disposal Networks

Abstract

As with most other serious street crimes, motor vehicle theft is a male-dominated offense. Yet, women do engage in motor vehicle theft, albeit at a reduced rate of participation. Here we examine the gendered nature of motor vehicle theft through direct comparison of qualitative data obtained from 35 juvenile and adult men and women actively involved auto theft in St. Louis, Missouri. By tracing similarities and differences between men's and women's pathways of initial involvement, enactment strategies, and post-theft acts, we provide a contextual analysis of offender's perceptions and behavior. Such an approach allows a more precise discussion on gender's influence (or lack of) on motor vehicle theft. Analysis shows that initiation into auto theft and property disposal networks are governed by male gatekeepers, and this leads to some key similarities in techniques between men and women. The ways in which women negotiate male-dominated networks is also discussed with particular emphasis on the innovative strategies they draw upon to accomplish their crimes within these landscapes and when opportunities are constrained by male gatekeepers.

Reconciling Emotion and Rational Choice: Negativistic Auto Theft, Consequence Irrelevance, and the Seduction of Destruction

“…Generally speaking, theoretical saturation can be achieved long before 35 respondents are interviewed (Guest, Bunce, and Johnson 2006), and that is what we found here. After about 20 interviews, responses started to become broadly redundant; sampling continued, however, so as to focus on underrepresented groups (namely, female auto thieves; see also Mullins and Cherbonneau 2011:283). Theoretical saturation does not equate to generalizability, but in qualitative research, generalizability is almost never as important as depth of understanding (Saldana 2014).…”

Ironies of Crime, Control, and Criminology

“…Besides burglars (Wright and Decker 1994;Mullins and Wright 2003), this method has been used to study robbers (Jacobs andWright 1999, 2008;Wright and Decker 1997), carjacking and auto theft Mullins and Cherbonneau 2011), gangs (Decker and van Winkle 1996;Miller 2001), retaliators (Jacobs and Wright 2006;Mullins et al 2004;Rosenfeld et al 2003), and drug dealers (Jacobs 1999;Jacques 2010;Jacques andWright 2008a, b, Jacques andWright 2011).…”

Household and Neighbourhood Responses to House Burglary in Ibadan

“…For this study, sex composition (presented Table 2) revealed that 51.2% of the respondents were male while 48.8% of the respondents were female. Gender has been identified as the main determinant of burglary experience (Steffensmeier & Allan, 2002;Mullin & Cherbonneau, 2011). Female interviewees reported greater instances of witnessing a burglary than men.…”