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

Abstract

Motor vehicle theft is an offense typically dominated by male offenders. As with all other major forms of criminal activity that are male dominated, women do participate in the theft of vehicles; yet, few studies have endeavored to examine their involvement in auto theft and even fewer have directly compared women's experiences alongside that of men's. This paper examines the gendered nature of motor vehicle theft through direct comparison of in‐depth interviews with 35 men and women actively involved in auto theft in St. Louis, Missouri. By tracing similarities and differences between men's and women's initiation into auto theft, enactment methods, and access to networks for vehicle and parts' disposal, we provide a contextual analysis of offender's perceptions and behavior. The findings indicate that while initiation into auto theft and property disposal networks are both governed by male gatekeepers, women experience greater barriers in gaining access to disposal networks than they do entry into auto theft offending which, in turn, leads to some key similarities in techniques between men and women.

Keywords:

• motor vehicle theft
• gender
• social networks
• property crime

Acknowledgments

Support for this work was provided by the University of Missouri Research Board. Points of view or opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the funding agency. Acknowledgement is owed to John Carmichael and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and criticisms on earlier versions of this paper and to Richard Wright for his hand in making this research possible.

Notes

1. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that St. Louis is one of the three US cities (outside of Virginia) designated as an “independent city” by means of which the metropolitan city core is politically autonomous from its contiguous counties.

2. One female interviewee, for example, had stolen only three cars herself, but had served as a lookout during auto thefts committed by her boyfriend. In another instance, the most recent offence of a male respondent fell outside the one‐month window but we included him because in the preceding month he had “been in” cars that were stolen, just not by him.

3. Whether paying participants affected the data is difficult to determine. If some were able to deceive us, the accounts they provided should differ substantially from those with real auto theft experience. As none of the narratives appears unauthentic, we think this unlikely. It is possible that some offenders provided accounts of thefts they had witnessed or heard about rather than participated directly themselves. If this occurred, the information analyzed here would be very similar and thus would not question the overall validity of our findings. It is always possible that interviewees exaggerated the number of thefts they participated in or misrepresented when they occurred. As these elements are of no empirical interest here, our findings are unaffected by this potential bias.

4. For example, O'Connor and Kelly (2006) interviewed five women, Mullins and Wright (2003) 18, Miller (1998) 14, and Mullins et al. (2004) 12.

5. The remainder included three males who were self‐taught, but all reported experience working on cars and/or expressed a curiosity for “how things work.”

6. This could easily be an artifact of the interview process. Due to the general demands of hegemonic masculinity, the men may have felt a need to present a veneer of competency. Especially when being interviewed by a male, they no doubt carefully constructed their presentation. Women would experience less social pressure to do so, especially in a realm typically viewed as masculine (see Mullins, 2006 for more discussion of masculine self‐presentation in interview situations).

7. Capone was interviewed on the same day and immediately after Chocolate who, at the time of Capone's interview, was waiting with the recruiter outside the interview room. Capone also described working with his 19‐year‐old niece owing to the fact that she was a competent auto thief. He was also proud to report that much like himself, “she hood. She be high‐speeding [eluding police] and everything—she get away.”