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Fencing/Receiving Stolen Goods

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Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Overview

The Industrial Revolution, beginning in Britain and gathering momentum in the eighteenth Century, enabled widespread ownership of desirable, mass produced, identical goods. This changed the characteristics of general theft whereby it switched from being motivated predominantly by a desire to take often unique property for personal consumption to stealing to sell standardized goods once more destined for the personal enjoyment of others.

While weight and portability of items is considered by thieves (Felson and Clarke 1998), this most usually happens, at least where prolific thieves are concerned, only if they believe the goods will be saleable once removed (Sutton 1995); at which time, considerations regarding weight and portability, and even danger of removal, will be balanced against prices. Therefore, the issue of demand and supply by theft is important because the most valid predictor of items that most thieves will choose to steal is whether or not they believe they can...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham, UK

    Mike Sutton

Authors
  1. Mike Sutton
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Correspondence to Mike Sutton .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerben Bruinsma

  2. VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerben Bruinsma

  3. Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    David Weisburd

  4. Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel

    David Weisburd

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Sutton, M. (2014). Fencing/Receiving Stolen Goods. In: Bruinsma, G., Weisburd, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5689-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5690-2

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