The Average Thief

October 9, 2015 in Daily Bulletin

An academic paper by Geoffrey Fain Williams looked at the life of a typical thief:

  • People seem to engage in thievery for short periods – usually around a year.
  • Reported earnings from stealing are low.
  • Those who engage in risky behaviours such as smoking are more likely to engage in theft.
  • Most thieves have stopped their dastardly heists by their late 20s – those that haven’t don’t earn a lot of money from it.
  • It’s possible that there are professional thieves that are so uncommon they aren’t captured in the data, or don’t respond to such surveys.
  • Or maybe the average thief is just a risk-taking adolescent who earns little more than they would from a part-time job.

The above summary is taken from the abstract. You can read the full paper here.

Source: Science Direct

Via: Marginal Revolution