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British Journal of Criminology Advance Access originally published online on March 31, 2006
British Journal of Criminology 2006 46(5):917-934; doi:10.1093/bjc/azl001
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The British Journal of Criminology 46:917-934 (2006)
© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The Key to Auto Theft

Emerging Methods of Auto Theft from the Offenders’ Perspective

Heith Copes and Michael Cherbonneau*

* Heith Copes, Department of Justice Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1201 University Boulevard, Suite 210, Birmingham, Al 35294–4562, USA; jhcopes{at}uab.edu; Michael Cherbonneau, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri–St Louis, 8001 Natural Bridge Road, St Louis, MO 63121, USA; mgc4h5{at}umsl.edu.

Recent improvements in vehicle security have reduced the opportunities for auto theft for many would-be thieves. Auto thieves have adapted to these changes by illegally obtaining keys to accomplish their misdeeds. To combat this trend in auto theft, it is necessary to determine commonly preferred methods of key theft. We rely on the accounts of auto thieves who used keys to steal vehicles to shed light on the techniques and strategies that they employed to obtain keys. Offenders’ accounts show that while some of them simply found keys left in cars, many took more active steps in locating and stealing keys. They relied on such strategies as burglary, robbery or fraud to acquire keys. Our results suggest that key thieves are not solely opportunistic but instead exhibit some degree of reasoning when offending.


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H. Copes, C. J. Forsyth, and R. K. Brunson
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Br. J. Criminol., November 1, 2007; 47(6): 885 - 899.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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