Jockeys and joyriders : changing patterns in car theft opportunity structures.

In this paper yearly variations in the rates of recovered stolen vehicles are viewed as measuring changes in levels of joyriding and short-term transportation offences. Rates of unrecovered stolen vehicles are shown to reflect instead variations in levels of chopping, retagging, and other fencing activities. The authors analyse one specific setting (the province of Quebec, Canada) where the amateur demand for stolen vehicles descreased substantially while the professional demand for such theft targets simultaneously increased.