Crime Does Pay: An Analysis of the Burglary Profession

A recent paper [Gleason, J., D. Barnum. 1976. Effectiveness of OSHA penalties: Myth or reality. Interfaces7 (1, Part I, November) 1–13.] examined the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) from a decision theory point of view, in an attempt to determine the effectiveness of the penalty provisions of the Act. That paper may be classified in the general area of the economics of crime, although violators of OSHA standards usually would not be considered criminals. This paper examines a group of people who consider themselves criminals—professional burglars. Those who have chosen crime as their profession are herein defined as rational economic criminals. The high rate of recidivism, especially among burglars (76 percent in 1974 [U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 1975. Uniform Crime Report, 1974. Washington, p. 51.]), supports the concept of the rational economic criminal, as does other recent work [Becker, G. 1968. Crime and punishment: An economic approach. The J. Political Econom.76 (2, March–April) 169–217; Sjoquist, D. 1973. Property crime and economic behavior: Some empirical results. The Amer. Econom. Rev.LXIII (3, June) 439–446.].