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                            Library & Multimedia
 Stick-up, Street Culture, and Offender Motivation
NCJ Number
              176453
Journal

*Criminology* Volume: 37 Issue: 1 Dated: February 1999 Pages: 149-174
Author(s)
          Bruce A. Jacobs;
                        Richard Wright
Date Published

February 1999
Length
              26 pages
Annotation
              Semistructured interviews with 86 active armed robbers explored these offenders' decisionmaking processes in actual settings and circumstances to understand how and why they moved from an unmotivated status to one in which they were determined to commit robbery.
Abstract
              The study was prompted by recognition that motivation is the central, yet arguably the most assumed, causal variable in the etiology of criminal behavior. Criminology's incomplete and imprecise understanding of this construct can be traced to criminology's strong emphasis on background risk factors, often to the exclusion of subjective foreground conditions. The present study was conducted in St. Louis, Mo. Participants were located using a snowball sampling strategy and included 72 males and 14 females. They ranged in age from 16 to 51 years. All had taken part in armed robberies; many had also committed strongarm attacks. Their robbery rates varied widely Results indicated that although the decision to commit robbery stemmed most directly from a perceived need for fast cash, this decision was activated, mediated, and shaped by participation in street culture. Findings indicated that street culture, together with its constituent conduct norms, represented an essential intervening variable that linked criminal motivation to background risk factors and subjective foreground conditions. Figure, footnotes, and 78 references (Author abstract modified)
      
  
          Additional Details
Grant Number(s)
        94-IJ-CX-0030
                                98-1SDRP


  
  
        
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Date Published: February 1, 1999
    
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                Armed robbery
        Crime causes theory
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        Offender attitudes



  
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