Metal Theft

Book Summary:

This book explores the little-known world of scrappers and metal thieves’ based on field research collected while traversing communities with thieves and scrappers. Drawing on candid interviews, observations of criminals at work, and participation in the scrapping subculture, the volume describes the subculture of scrappers and identifies differences between scrappers and metal thieves. Through the offenders’ perspective, often quoting their candid responses, Stickle explores the motivations for metal theft as well as the techniques and methods for successfully committing theft. The book discusses how these methods and techniques are learned and identifies ways—often through the thieves’ own words—to prevent metal theft. Throughout the book, common assumptions are challenged about this community, and policy implications are identified.

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What Others are saying: 

"Professor Stickle offers the first close-up study of these offenders, their modus operandi, and how they think and act. He considers when they do harm and when they do not, adding to the literature on how offenders make decisions and how they might be guided to make different choices." – Marcus Felson

"Stickle’s well-done ethnography of metal scrappers presents a complex and nuanced portrait of scrappers. The stories he tells not only add to our academic understanding of this stigmatized group, but they also humanize them. In the end, this is what we want from ethnographies, and Stickle delivers." – Heith Copes