Exploring the House Burglar's Perspective: Observing and Interviewing Offenders in St. Louis, 1989-1990 (ICPSR 6148)

Version Date: Mar 10, 1994

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Principal Investigator(s):
Richard Wright, University of Missouri-St. Louis. Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice; Scott H. Decker, University of Missouri-St. Louis. Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06148.v1

Version V1

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Summary

These data investigate the behaviors and attitudes of active residential burglars, not presently incarcerated, operating in St. Louis, Missouri. Through personal interviews, information was gathered on the burglars' motivation and feelings about committing crimes, peer pressure, burglary methods, and stolen goods disposal. Respondents were asked to describe their first residential burglary, to recreate verbally the most recent residential burglary they had committed, to discuss their perceptions of the risk values involved with burglary, and to describe the process through which they selected potential targets for burglaries. In-depth, semistructured interviews lasting from one and a half to three hours were conducted in which participants were allowed to speak freely and informally to the investigator. These interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim, and some were later annotated with content-related markers or "tags" to facilitate analysis. Information was also elicited on age, race, sex, marital status, employment status, drug history, and criminal offense history.

Citation

Wright, Richard, and Decker, Scott H. Exploring the House Burglar’s Perspective: Observing and Interviewing Offenders in St. Louis, 1989-1990. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1994-03-10. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06148.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (89-IJ-CX-0046)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1989 -- 1990

Date of Collection

1989 -- 1990

Data Collection Notes

  1. This dataset is a machine-readable text file containing verbatim answers to interviewers' questions. For reasons of confidentiality, names have been removed. Profanity has been deleted as well.

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Study Purpose

The goal of this project was to learn more about the behaviors and attitudes of active residential burglars not presently incarcerated. Interviewers asked questions on six main topics: (1) What types of needs motivated the burglar: psychological or financial, urgent or long-term? (2) To what degree did threat of arrest or punishment influence criminal behavior? (3) What constitutes a good residential target for burglary? (4) What methods are used to gain entrance to a home? (5) Which areas in a home are searched first and what items are most sought after? and (6) How are stolen goods disposed of?

Study Design

In-depth, semistructured interviews lasting from one and a half to three hours were conducted in which participants were allowed to speak freely and informally to the investigator. These interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim into a machine-readable text file, and some were later annotated with content-related markers or "tags" to facilitate analysis. Participants were typically paid 25 dollars for their time.

Sample

The study employed a "snowball" sampling technique, whereby offenders known to the investigators were asked to refer other active offenders who, in turn, were asked to refer still more active offenders until a suitable sample size was attained. To keep the sample from containing a disproportionately high number of offenders who had been previously apprehended, no referrals from law enforcement or other criminal justice personnel were used. All 105 individuals who agreed to an interview were included in the sample. Of the sample, 87 were male and 18 were female, 72 were Black and 33 were white, and 27 were juveniles. At the time of interview, 21 of the subjects were on probation, parole, or serving suspended sentences.

Universe

Active (not presently incarcerated), residential burglary offenders in St. Louis, Missouri.

Unit(s) of Observation

individual

Data Source

personal interviews

Data Type(s)

Description of Variables

Information is included on demographic characteristics of offenders such as age, race, sex, marital status, and employment status. Each respondent's drug and criminal history records are also provided. Other questions relate to the opinions and feelings of the subjects, e.g., how a likely burglary target is defined, what characteristics each looks for in such a target, what motivation the respondent feels before committing a crime, what, if any, deterrents exist, and how deterrents affect the respondent's criminal actions. Additional items cover how crimes are actually carried out by the offender, including what types of items are first on the list of valuables to steal, how long the offender spends inside the residence, and whether the respondent "cases" the residence before the burglary.

Response Rates

Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales

None

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Original Release Date

1994-03-10

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Wright, Richard, and Scott H. Decker. Exploring the House Burglar's Perspective: Observing and Interviewing Offenders in St. Louis, 1989-1990. ICPSR06148-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1993. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06148.v1
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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.