Living Off Crime

This book is an explication of social class and the adjudication of repetitive property offenders within the under class. It describes their class-informed subculture and near absence of any politicized action or strategy.

Living Off Crime describes highly active property offenders who commit themselves to careers in serious property crimes such as burglary and armed robbery. This book takes the unique approach of situating these criminal careers within the fundamental sociological concepts of social class, criminal subcultures, and consciousness. Tunnell brings class back into the dialogue of property crime among the highly criminally active and economically marginalized, and gives considerable treatment to the subcultural values of this group. Repetitive property offenders also demonstrate a particular consciousness, which is used as an organizing motif throughout the book. Their consciousness indicates little of class commitment or anti-systemic recognition and strategy, but rather is described as street-centered, hedonistic anarchy as indicated by their disparate crimes against lower- and working-class individuals. The book does not ignore the politics of their behaviors; rather it describes their actions as political yet absent politicized class-based consciousness and strategies.