Extract
Youth auto theft: a survey of a general population of Canadian youth.
Motor vehicles continue to be increasingly crucial to daily life. Unfortunately, they are also targets of crime. The problem of theft of and from vehicles has drawn worldwide attention (e.g., for Europe, see Richards 1993). Whether measured by official statistics or surveys, auto theft is a frequent offence that is economically costly to society and harmful to both victims and offenders. For instance, police reported 160,100 motor vehicle thefts across Canada in 2005 with a rate of 496 thefts per 100,000 population (Gannon 2006: 15). Each year, more than CAN$1 billion dollars is lost to auto theft (Insurance Bureau of Canada 2004: 1). Victims are distressed and inconvenienced, while unsuspecting buyers of stolen vehicles surfer financial losses. In addition, there were 81 fatalities and 127 injuries per year in Canada, between 1999 and 2001, as a result of motor vehicle theft, and many of these involved the offenders themselves (Insurance Bureau of Canada: 4).
Although auto theft is variously motivated and committed by different groups of offenders, researchers distinguish between auto thieves who are older professionals stealing primarily for profit and younger amateurs stealing largely for recreation (Copes 2003; McCaghy, Giordano, and Henson 1977; Scott and Paxton 1997; Tremblay, Clermont, and Cusson 1994). This paper focuses on youth involvement in auto theft. In fact, auto theft is a common youth crime, and in Canada in 2005 youths were charged for motor vehicle theft at a rate of 127 per 100,000 population (Statistics Canada 2005b) compared to adults with a rate of 27 (Statistics Canada 2005a). Despite its prevalence and impact, youth auto theft has drawn relatively little research attention compared to other property offences or other youth crimes. The small body of research on youth auto theft has examined the characteristics, experiences, and motivations of auto thieves, as well as explored the potential of deterrence and prevention, and intervention policies (e.g., Dawes 2002; Fleming 1994; 1999; Light, Nee, and Ingham 1993; McMurran and Whitman 1997; Spencer 1992). However, some of this research is now relatively outdated, and it is unclear if the phenomenon of youth auto theft has changed. Furthermore, the findings are largely based on young offenders (i.e., young auto thieves who have been caught), thus skewing our underst...See the full content of this document
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