Browsing by Author "Drozda, Christopher"

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    Lifestyles of youth in auto theft: an exploratory study
    (2004) Drozda, Christopher; Stebbins, Robert A.
    The literature on auto theft is sparse and research has focused primarily from the quantitative viewpoint, thus motivations behind the act have been inadequately explored. In this study twelve juveniles were interviewed on the motivations of auto theft. The lifestyle of these juveniles consists of a self-interpretation of boredom that prevailed in their everyday lives. For the juveniles it is not just the thrill of auto theft, but the perception of controlling the risk involved in "getting away with it." Further, the auto theft lifestyle is based on the pursuit of casual leisure (Stebbins, 1997) allowing for an innovative approach to discovering the motivations of crime. The motivations of auto theft are contextualized as thrill and risk with a hedonic lifestyle as a means to an end. This means to an end comes from the theft itself as a leisure activity or as an intermediate step to other leisure activities.