Article

Criminal Justice Review

2015, Vol. 40(1) 47-66
ª 2015 Georgia State University
Shoplifting by Male and Reprints and permission:
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Female Drug Users: DOI: 10.1177/0734016814568012
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Gender, Agency, and Work

Gail A. Caputo1 and Anna King2

Abstract
This article explores the gendered nature of crime by investigating the motivations and justifications
used by male and female substance abusers whose current source of income is shoplifting. Drawing
upon interviews from a larger study, this subsample of active male and female offender narratives
produces several themes. First, despite difficult personal circumstances and constant need to satisfy
drug addictions, agency in action is expressed in how male and female drug users negotiate criminal
options in an urban drug market. Second, men give different reasons for shoplifting over other
hustles than do the more common subject of shoplifting studies, women. Although men rationalize
shoplifting as a logical alternative to more ‘‘masculine’’ crimes (e.g., robbery), women compare it to
the highly ‘‘feminized’’ crime of sex work. What male and female shoplifters do seem to share is a
similar assessment of financial rewards and harm. Shoplifting is constructed as a form of work by
women but less clearly so by the men. Third, both the men and the women express themselves using
gender constructs in a fluid and dynamic way. They revise and develop ideas about what is masculine
and what is ‘‘feminine.’’ We conclude that gender and agency is played out in this urban environment
through crime selection and underlying rationales.

Keywords
substance abuse, gender and crime/justice, drugs and crime

In 2012, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports, shoplifting in
the United States increased by 6.3% from the previous year and made up almost 20% of all larceny
theft recorded (U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013). Most shoplifters
are said to be the occasional, so-called nonprofessional or amateur shoplifter who does not make
work of the crime but who is more psychologically, situationally, or socially motivated (Caputo,
2008a). Professional shoplifters who steal for economic gain or ‘‘boosters,’’ however, are estimated
to make up roughly 10–20% of all offenders arrested for shoplifting (Cameron, 1964; Caputo, 1998;

1
Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA
2
Georgian Court University, Lakewood, NJ, USA

Corresponding Author:
Gail A. Caputo, Rutgers University, 405 Cooper St., Camden, NJ 08104, USA.
Email: gailcaputo@icloud.com

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48 Criminal Justice Review 40(1)

Moore, 1984). These more professional shoplifters are rarely also drug users, but some research does
find drug-addicted shoplifters who use this crime specifically for economic gain (Caputo, 2008b;
Courtwright, Joseph, & Des Jarlais, 2013).
Whether shoplifting is a crime equally favored by males and females is not always clear. Some
sources report males more often both self-report and are arrested for shoplifting (see, e.g., U.S.
Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013), but the crime is usually positioned
as a highly gendered, feminine (also known as ‘‘pink’’) crime (see, for instance, Shteir’s recent cul-
tural history of shoplifting, 2011) because it is the most commonly recorded crime among female
offenders. Thus, even though both men and women are involved, women are overrepresented
(Bradford & Balmaceda, 1983; Caputo, 1998, 2004; Kivivuori, 1998; Ray, 1987; but see Buckle
& Farrington, 1984; Klemke, 1982; Sarasalo, Bergman, & Toth, 1997; Tonglet, 2002).
Scholarly attention to shoplifting has led to advances in theory and prevention with a large body
of research on causes for involvement (e.g., Cromwell, Parker, & Mobley, 1999; Goldman, 1991;
Klemke, 1982; Krasnovsky & Lane, 1998; Moore, 1983) and offender typologies (Abelson, 1989;
Cameron, 1964; Caputo, 1998; Klemke & Egger, 1992). For loss prevention, research has consid-
ered how shoplifting is performed, looking at techniques involved in target selection (Carroll &
Weaver, 1986; Dabney, Hollinger, & Dugan, 2004). What the literature lacks, however, is research
that considers processes and motivations for professional shoplifting in an urban drug culture. There
is also almost no scholarly attention paid to the role of gender, agency, and identity in shaping how
both women and men express their participation in this crime (but see Caputo & King, 2011).
To explore these issues, we begin with a framework for understanding identity as a set of func-
tional social beliefs that are a part of the dynamic domain of personality (Sarbin, 1986). This def-
inition assumes an active agent who is continually negotiating between different possible
identities (e.g., ‘‘front stage’’ and ‘‘back stage’’ identities; see Goffman, 1959). Our identities have
to be ‘‘routinely created and sustained in the reflexive activities of the individual’’ (Giddens, 1991,
p. 52). The assumption, building on traditions such as symbolic interactionism, is that human life is
essentially and fundamentally narrated and that understanding human action, therefore, requires
some understanding of these narratives. Gender expression is part of identity, thus we consider dif-
ferent ways men and women ‘‘do gender’’ and express agency in criminal offending.
Our ultimate aim is to explore the motivations of active male and female drug users who select
shoplifting as a means to earn money for drugs. We explore what the criminal opportunity structure
is in this environment and how occupants of this social network come to select shoplifting over alter-
natives. In this male-dominated space of an urban drug culture, how do both women and men justify
shoplifting as a source of financial earnings? What are their underlying rationales for engagement?
By examining these questions, we hope to highlight the gendered nature of this crime and conse-
quently of the illicit economy to which it is connected as these men and women see it playing out
on the streets.

Gender and the Urban Drug Culture

For drug users, hustling for cash to support continued drug use is often a daily objective (Bennett,
Holloway, & Farrington, 2008; Goldstein, 1985; Manzoni, Brochu, Fischer, & Rehm, 2006). With
many other types of crimes and deviant occupations, shoplifting has a place in the illicit urban drug
culture as a criminal hustle—a mechanism to earn money. In fact, shoplifting may be more common
than other types of crimes, such as drug dealing or violent crime used by drug users to finance their
addictions (Bennett & Holloway, 2005; Harrison & Gfroerer, 1992; Holloway & Bennett, 2004). But
hustles available to and selected by drug users vary by factors such as drug use patterns, earning
potential, experience, and accessibility to earning sources (e.g., Bourgois & Schonberg, 2009; Maher

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Caputo and King 49

& Hudson, 2007; Small et al., 2013; Sommers, Baskin, & Fagan, 2000; Thompson & Uggen, 2012).
Gender plays a role too.
The most profitable and prestigious of criminal hustles in the urban drug economy is foremost
controlled by men, thus many crimes are therefore closed off to women. Open and directly available
hustles for women seem to be less profitable and perhaps even more dangerous (Maher & Daly,
1996; J. Miller, 1998, 2001; C. W. Mullins & Wright, 2003). Drug dealing, burglary, and robbery
are disproportionately ‘‘male’’ hustles. These crimes seem to embody a masculine street ethic,
emphasizing physical prowess, violence, uncertainty, and power (Messerschmidt, 1993; Simpson
& Elis, 1995). Women might become involved in such crimes, but their roles are usually minor, and
they are most often working on low-level crimes and operating as sex workers (T. L. Anderson,
2005; Caputo, 2008a; Maher, 1997; C. W. Mullins & Wright, 2003). Beliefs about what behaviors
are suitably feminine or masculine are often revealed in criminal hustles used by men and women,
reinforcing cultural gender stereotypes (Brookman, Mullins, Bennett, & Wright, 2007; Maher &
Curtis, 1992; Maher & Daly, 1996). Yet not all women and men engaged in criminal hustles in urban
drug cultures fit the stereotype or subcultural ‘‘tradition.’’ Some do not fall into the presumed roles,
but rather, step outside of the normative gendered ways of earning money (this is usually documen-
ted among women, see Denton & O’Malley, 1999; Fleetwood, 2014; Jacobs & Miller, 1998;
Simpson & Elis, 1995; Sommers, Baskin, & Fagan, 2000).

Shoplifting and Doing Gender

Women might select uncharacteristically feminine crimes clearly dominated by men such as robbery
and drug sales and they might do so for reasons very similar to men—like earning easy money. How
they ‘‘do’’ the crime, however, might be different, illustrating a gendered methodology to their
offending. In drug selling and robbery, women’s actions are normally situated within a broader male
group where women take a back seat to men, and the women are perceived as weaker, more vulner-
able and less powerful than men. These themes reproduce gendered norms in women’s commission
of the crime (Maher, 1997; J. Miller, 1998; C. W. Mullins & Wright, 2003; for emerging research on
how women use gender to their advantage and exploit male-dominated crime, see Fleetwood, 2014;
Grundetjern & Sandberg, 2012).
Where shoplifting fits into this discussion is not so evident, because it is a criminal option osten-
sibly open to both men and women. Even while it may be perceived as a female criminal option, men
do select the crime over alternatives (see, e.g., Bennett & Holloway, 2005). However, why men
select shoplifting and how they make it work for them as men has not often been the subject of
research. Recent work on women’s use of the crime for income (Caputo, 2008a; Caputo & King,
2011) has taken up the topic of shoplifting as a viable criminal hustle in the urban drug culture for
women and how gender shapes these offending experiences. How these experiences compare and
contrast with male accounts of shoplifting along these lines has not yet been examined.
Agency in action—or the ability to act on one’s own behalf and reveal the ‘‘self’’ in decisions and
actions—is not a fixed, timeless measure of human decision making and behavior. What one can
accomplish today might be different from what one might be capable of tomorrow or how one
negotiates the world with limited information, in situations of stress, with new opportunities. As
Sewell (1992) argues, agency moves with resources available in a person’s particular social world.
Just as agency is in J. Miller’s (2002) words ‘‘transformative,’’ masculinities and femininities
expressed in how women and men negotiate crime are best viewed as fluid expressions of identity
situated in the social world. From this point of view, it is much easier to account for the behavior of a
woman who engages in assault in the course of a drug transaction even though her behavior does not
reflect what we know to be feminine.

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50 Criminal Justice Review 40(1)

Building on this idea, our effort in this analysis is also to expand on how gender is used as a means
to an end, just as any hustle (e.g., shoplifting) can be exploited for personal gain. By doing this, we
seek to highlight women’s and men’s engagement in stealing and reselling stolen merchandise then,
also as a demonstration of individual agency. Perhaps like the majority of readers who fall some-
where in the middle of a continuum of gender identification, shoplifters do not narrate their personal
identities in ways that confine them to a traditional notion of gender; rather these individuals adopt
different behaviors naturally and comfortably when they decide to do so. Thus, following J. Miller’s
(2002, p. 437) call to ‘‘deal explicitly with the intersecting nature of various social hierarchies and
identities’’ in ‘‘doing gender and crime,’’ our secondary aim in this work is also to explore gender as
a part of ‘‘the transformative potential of agency.’’
This research examines active male and female drug users’ crime selection (what subjects chose
to do) and underlying rationales (why they do what they do) as they make sense of their actions in an
urban environment. In doing so, we hope to highlight the role of gender and agency in the experience
of shoplifting. Specifically, we are interested in exploring questions that can help us to understand
these exceptions (men and women who chose professional shoplifting in an urban subculture) in the
context of ‘‘doing gender.’’ In sum, we examine how gender can be used as a means to an end and the
processes that allow gender to be circumvented in the name of individual agency.

Method
This article uses interview data from a larger ethnographic study on substance abusers financing
drug addictions and other daily struggles conducted in Camden, NJ, and Philadelphia, PA,
between 2002 and 2006 (see Caputo, 2008a). As part of the study, 11 male and 12 female shoplif-
ters were interviewed at length about their lives, including their drug use and the mechanisms used
to earn money over the course of their addictions. The participants volunteered for the study by
responding to solicitations and posted advertisements on the streets, at transportation centers, and
from the county jail in Camden (n ¼ 2 males). The study also involved snowball sampling. Many
of the men and women participated because they heard positive feedback from other subjects
about the study and its author. Recruiting and interviewing participants followed requisite human
subject protections.
All the participants were interviewed at length (2–4 hr) and often multiple times. The interviews
were audio recorded. Some interviews took place in a private location in downtown Camden just a
few blocks from an arterial transportation route through the city and a primary location for buying
and using drugs. Other interviews took place on the streets and at the local jail just blocks from the
transportation center. Interviews encouraged subjects to tell their life stories, detailing how they
experienced the world and crime. Topics covered in the interviews included childhood and adoles-
cent trauma, drug and alcohol use, and mechanisms to earn money. Probing questions captured the
more nuanced information (e.g., about how drug users turn crime into work to finance their lives).
The interviews were transcribed into text and coded thematically, yielding rich information about
personal histories, participation in crime, perceptions of the social and economic world on the street,
and mechanisms utilized to secure money.
At the time of interviews, the 11 men in the study were heavily addicted to drugs (heroin, cocaine,
and crack). They range in age from their early 20s to mid-50s (with an average age of 31), and about
half (56%) were White. Men are an active part of the urban drug culture as drug users and buyers.
Their daily lives are organized around getting and using drugs in a place where violence and danger
is close at hand and conventional roles and rules are eschewed. Most say they are living from pillow
to pillow with friends or on the streets in abandoned homes around a major drug corridor. Their lives
before drug addictions and criminality were marked with much hardship including loss, childhood
trauma, and parental substance abuse. These men had engaged in various types of work and crimes

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Caputo and King 51

to support their addictions, for food, housing, and to help care for their partners and families. They
are necessarily not specialists at shoplifting, but say they prefer the crime to other alternatives for
earning drug money. Mechanisms they use for earning money, both criminal and legal, have shifted
back and forth over time with the ebb and flow of their addictions and changes in their personal and
economic circumstances. With stable housing and opportunities to work in conventional jobs for
good pay, the men might ease off criminal work. When freshly out of jail, however, the men would
seize opportunities to sell drugs, con strangers, or engage in anything that would help them get a fix.
Thus, at times the criminal enterprises of the men can be varied, yet at other times can be very nar-
rowly defined.
The 12 women in the study say that shoplifting is their primary criminal offense and their chief
source of income. Self-described drug addicts, the women are daily users of heroin, cocaine, crack,
wet weed (a mix of marijuana and angel dust or phencyclidine), and other substances. As a group,
their lives before drug addiction and shoplifting were marked with abuse and trauma, in many cases
occurring during adulthood but often stemming from childhood experiences. They were all raised
with alcohol abuse and, with some exceptions, exposed to violence among caretakers in their homes
and were themselves direct victims of multiple harms including physical and emotional abuse in the
childhood home. Primarily White, the women come from neighborhoods they described as working
class or middle class. Several of the women graduated high school, took conventional jobs, and had
families. It was in late adolescence and early adulthood that these women turned from conventional
work to crime to support their ongoing use of drugs. Several of the women had spent time homeless
on the streets and nearly all of them have been incarcerated multiple times. Since the start of their
drug use, which for the group had spanned 14–35 years, their lives had revolved around getting and
using drugs. Their criminal histories range from minor possession offenses to violent crimes. Also
similar to the men, while their narratives reveal a level of versatility in criminal offending, they can
also be described (as they describe themselves) as specialists or professionals in the area of
shoplifting.

Analysis and Findings

Both groups speak at length about the fast and easy money that is to be made from shoplifting. In
addition, they see shoplifting as a much less harmful criminal endeavor (to themselves and to others)
than other options (i.e., drug dealing, robbery, and sex work). Women, and to a lesser extent the men,
construct their involvement in shoplifting as an occupational choice. These are what their narratives
have in common. At the same time, several divergent themes emerged in the interviews. The two
groups differed in their assessments of risk and in their appraisal of psychological rewards. For
instance, in terms of risk, men note the low legal and physical risks and easy accessibility of sho-
plifting, adding that these characteristics make it the only logical choice despite an awareness of its
subjugated status in the criminal hierarchy. The women’s narratives acknowledge the higher risk of
criminal sanctions for shoplifting (compared to sex work) while at the same time noting the sense of
self-mastery, independence, and self-respect that they get back from having chosen this ‘‘occupa-
tion’’ over the alternative. We discuss these findings in more detail subsequently, exploring how
each can be understood in the context of gender and agency.

Fast Money and Easy Money

The primary reason the men shoplift is the same as the women’s—to get money for the drugs they
crave. Both the men and the women say they can earn an ‘‘easy’’ couple hundred dollars each day
(sometimes upward of US$500 daily). Taking ownership of their decisions to select shoplifting over
other hustles available to them (both illegal and legal), the men describe shoplifting as the best

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52 Criminal Justice Review 40(1)

mechanism to earn ‘‘fast’’ money (see also Brookman et al., 2007; Deakin, Smithson, Spencer, &
Medina-Ariza, 2007). The choice has other benefits that are self-reinforcing. Compared to tradi-
tional jobs, shoplifting affords a drug user greater flexibility. Shoplifters make money in a variety
of ways. They may peddle merchandise they steal to friends or strangers on the streets, or they might
seek a ‘‘return’’ of the merchandise to the store for cash. The preferred method, especially to the
experienced shoplifter, is to sell their stolen goods to small, corner store retailers.
The women also see shoplifting as a means to earn ‘‘fast money,’’ money that can be earned at
any time, when need arises, with a fast turnaround from theft to when they ‘‘cash in.’’ Kay, for
instance, a long-time heroin addict who found herself alone when her husband was incarcerated,
describes how shoplifting worked for her. Although she would eventually become specialized in sex
work, shoplifting fit her needs at one time in her life:

Shoplifting became a part of my way of life . . . I couldn’t pay the bills; I was by myself and I had a drug
habit. So I thought, where do I go from here? Being a heroin addict it was quick money; [because] I was
always fearful of being sick.

Women shoplift and resell their merchandise, and money is the principle motivator. Even compared
to dancing or occasional sex work, another woman, Apollonia, chose shoplifting as her principle
means of income because, as she puts it, it is ‘‘an easier way to earn money’’ than the other options.
Connie adds, ‘‘You can sell your body and do whatever, but on a daily basis, this is the only way I
know I can have cash. I haven’t got time to work for as much money as I need.’’ Compared to other
criminal hustles available, shoplifting gives both the men and the women greater flexibility in their
schedules and good profits.

Less Harm
It’s business. The women, and to a lesser extent the men, see occupational dimensions of legal work
mirrored in shoplifting. Fredo, for instance, explains that shoplifting is ‘‘work’’ that he ‘‘always falls
back on.’’ Likewise, Sonny is asked why he stopped engaging in aggressive crimes like robbery and
started shoplifting. His explanation reveals how, for him, shoplifting is not the manifestation of a
dysfunctional and violent upbringing, rather it is part of a long and thoughtful professional endeavor,
it is a ‘‘career’’ with deliberate and purposeful considerations. Sonny says, ‘‘The reason why that I
think I shoplifted and made it such a career move, is that it’s less risky than, like stealing a car or
robbery.’’ Vito similarly talks about the crime this way saying, ‘‘It’s business. I’ve been in business
over 20 some years, I know people that have been in business for 30, 40 years. It’s a lot of money out
here.’’ Vito presents himself a ‘‘man’’ who is not a hopeless ‘‘drug addict’’ or ‘‘thief,’’ but ‘‘a busi-
nessman’’ with peers who are also established members of this economic community. He adds that
he and his ‘‘colleagues’’ work in an entrepreneurial spirit, choosing shoplifting to avoid serious types
of harm, and are smart enough to take advantage of obvious opportunities. Turning crime into work
likewise seems to reduce stigma in choosing illegal behavior to earn income.
Women echo many of the men in their construction of shoplifting as a professional job, even a
career (also see Caputo, 2008a; Caputo & King, 2011). But compared to men, the women are more
likely to be specialists at this crime, committing their days to planning and carrying out the crime,
managing customers, and seeking new ways to manage risk of detection. Apollonia, for instance,
talks about her work on the street as reliable and steady, like a full-time job even though for her,
it does not require much effort. Her sentiments are also reminiscent of the male narrative’s point
of view that in shoplifting one exerts low effort compared to other criminal hustles but still reaps
high material payoffs:

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Caputo and King 53

Every day it was a job—a full-time job—every day . . . Even if you’re not a thief, you’re gonna [sic] steal
something . . . I was just putting stuff in my bag, and then, after that, that’s the stuff I wanted for myself
personally. . . . It was convenient. I mean, I didn’t have to do that much work.

Apollonia’s understanding of shoplifting is that it is ‘‘a full-time job.’’ This shared conception of
shoplifting—not as ‘‘crime’’ but as work—might pave the way for drug users to develop shoplifting
as a specialization in this context.

No Robbin’ Hoods. Both groups portray shoplifting as a crime against an establishment rather than an
individual person, mitigating the associated moral and financial damage they cause. They are ‘‘not
hurting people’’ in what they do, because they are not taking from the pockets of ‘‘hard working
people,’’ individuals they can relate to who work hard for what they have. Fast cash first, both see
other benefits from the crime, reinforcing their motivation for selecting it. With comments like ‘‘it’s
not that bad’’ and about retailers, ‘‘they have insurance’’ and ‘‘they are greedy,’’ the men easily ratio-
nalize to themselves that their behavior causes very little real damage and to some extent that the
retailers are in part responsible for theft. For example, Frank reasons from this point of view com-
paring theft from an individual hard working person to his, less harmful theft:

Stealing from store to store, it’s different than stealing from people, like if I steal your watch, you worked
hard for that watch. I mean you just paid $100 for your watch; I just took it from you. You have to pay
another $100 for that watch. The store—this is my theory and this is why I don’t have a problem taking
from the stores—if I steal $100 worth of stuff from the store, they may be responsible for $10 or $20 and
then, it’s all going to come back in from the company and that’s how I justify making it all right.

Frank reveals that his reasoning indulges in a bit of creative thinking. This is how he makes it
morally acceptable. By arguing that the victims of the theft—the retailers—are really not harmed
by their actions and or that the stores actually deserve what they get (they are greedy), Frank does
what many criminals do cognitively to continue with their behavior unimpeded by a guilty
conscience.
However, not all of the men see it this way. Carmine has a different view. Carmine is a father
whose parents were both addicts who were in and out of jail. He began using at age 10 and dropped
out of junior high. For him, any harm—physical or financial—is serious and is wrong. He says:

You really are hurting the storeowners that work hard to get the products. It’s not physical but you’re
hurting somebody’s wallet. These people have these companies and they work so hard to put money
in their pockets. You’re always hurting someone; (even) if it’s not physically, ya know, it’s hurting some-
one. But, if you’re high on drugs, you don’t think about the consequences. You don’t think about who
you’re hurting, you’re just out for yourself, your own selfishness, and you’re cold blooded.

Perhaps Carmine’s position as a father and as a victim of his parents ‘‘victimless’’ crimes has made
him more finely attuned to the potential for harm in taking something that simply does not belong to
him he causes when he shoplifts.
This increased sensitivity did not translate to the women as the difference feminists would predict
(i.e., Gilligan, 1983). Rather, these women seem to see themselves as shoplifters first and women
(with a distinctly softer way) second when they are ‘‘on the job.’’ In fact, the greater majority of the
women consider the retailers much less worthy of victim status than the men. Mama says:

I would never steal from an individual. You know what I mean, I would never take cash out of some-
body’s purse or steal from somebody’s house. I’ve never, I’ve never, I wouldn’t do that because I’m tak-
ing from somewhere now that has, it’s not personally financially hurting them. . . . I figures [sic] I’m

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54 Criminal Justice Review 40(1)

really not, I’m not personally hurting anybody. I mean, merchandise OK. When it comes on down to it
then you could lecture about taxpayers and how paying more at the stores because of people like me and
blah, blah, blah. But, I’m physically, there’s a lot more that people that [who] are heroin addicts do to
support their habit than what I’m doin’. This is the only thing that I’ve ever done. And it’s as far a level
I’ll go. I never hurt anybody for money.

Mama’s reference to the violence done by other addicts to get money seems to excuse her morally as
she discusses stealing from stores to support her habit. In the spirit of neutralizations or ‘‘thinking
errors’’ that serve to remove internal obstacles to offending behavior, Mama frames her criminal
occupation in terms that allow her to continue doing it (see Sykes & Matza, 1957). This technique
is shared by the men who also protest with few exceptions that they are not really stealing because
they are not stealing from an identifiable person (i.e., Jane) or from people like themselves (i.e., in
their neighborhood) and especially for the men, that they are not causing physical injury.

No violence. A related rationale offered only by the men is that shoplifting carries a lower risk of vio-
lence, making it a reasonable crime choice and another motivator for selecting it. That it involves no
weapon and causes no physical injury makes defending and justifying their crime choice over other
crimes and legal work much simpler. This expresses a notion of masculinity softer than the custom-
ary take on men in street crime, the tough guy risk inclined macho offender willing to harm and not
afraid to risk it. That it causes less harm than other crimes reflects a notion of masculinity aligned
with a female-oriented care perspective (see Baumeister & Sommer, 1997; Brown & Gilligan, 1993;
Gilligan, 1983) than a hegemonic working-class ideal (see Messerschmidt, 1993) or the aggressive
male offender (see Alder & Polk, 1996; Katz, 1988; Messerschmidt, 2000, 2005; C. Mullins, 2006;
Oliver, 1994; Winlow, 2001).
This does not mean that the men cannot or would not confront danger, remember nearly all of the
men in this sample have engaged in a violent crime (e.g., aggravated assault and robbery) or a crime
with the potential for violence (e.g., car theft, drug selling, and burglary). It just means that mascu-
linity can be understood flexibly and expressed differently when need be. Causing no physical harm
is good when it can be avoided. This is consistent with Goldstein’s (1985) economic compulsive
model that finds drug users avoid violent economic crime when other alternatives are available (see
also, Allen, 2005; Bennett & Holloway, 2005). Here, Sonny explains that harm is also physical and
that shoplifting as a mechanism to finance drug addictions eliminates the need for this violence.

I don’t rob because you take a risk if that person has a pistol, knife; you take a lot of risks of violence
occurring on the streets. You have people that do things bad that benefit themselves but you have people
that also do things bad to benefit themselves . . . that have a heart, that have a conscience. I, however,
have a conscience.

As Sonny argues, the moral and financial harm of shoplifting is much easier to reconcile than the
consequences of physical violence at play with other offenses. A man can shoplift for his addiction
and still be a good person, with a conscience and a heart. Vito adds:

I’m not hurting anybody. I’m not hurting anybody physically. I’m hurting nobody’s life so I’m OK with
it . . . There ain’t no other type of crime for me. I don’t carry guns and wouldn’t deal no [sic] drugs, that’s
too risky. You got people that might be sick, dope sick. You might have a chance of getting robbed or
killed.

For the men as a group, shoplifting is attractive because it does not require users to carry tools that
are weapons, thus the potential for their own violent victimization is reduced. This is a benefit to

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Caputo and King 55

selecting the crime. And related to this, the crime does not involve physical interaction with a victim,
therefore eliminating potential harm to others and the associated moral consequences. This too is a
plus. To select shoplifting over robbery and selling drug or carjacking to feed addiction means that
the risk of violence is much less probable and the reason for doing it is easier to live with.

Risk
It’s like prostitution for men. One of the most compelling themes to emerge in the interviews with the
men is that shoplifting is ‘‘just prostitution for men.’’ In other words, just like sex work is what
women do (from the men’s point of view), shoplifting is (or should be) just what (real) men do.
When asked ‘‘why shoplifting?’’ their rationales appeared decidedly unconcerned with appearing
‘‘unmanly.’’ Perhaps relatedly, the men did not color their assessments of women who do sex work
with any gender-based judgments. On the contrary, they express respect for that decision as they do
their own. Fredo describes his choice in a way that many of the men did:

The consequences aren’t as severe as going out and robbing somebody or something. It’s just petty
crime. I don’t want to hurt nobody. I never hurt nobody in my life and I’m not one to pay big conse-
quences. I figure shoplifting, the most is 90 days . . . It’s good money. People don’t realize how easy it
can be, how much can be made in it. It’s easier than a regular job. Once I started boosting everyday mak-
ing like 200 dollars I said ya know I don’t need to work now.

The open admission that he is ‘‘not one to pay big consequences’’ seems to ignore macho bra-
vado often found in a hyper-masculinized identity characteristic of male street crime (Copes &
Hochstetler, 2003; Goodey, 1997; Laidler & Hunt, 2001; Newburn & Stanko, 1995). Shoplift-
ing is simply . . . smarter. Recognizing that the world of crime work in the urban drug culture is
gendered, Fredo, like many of the men in the sample, does not attach the same elevated value
to more stereotypically male crimes that involve higher stakes. He and most of these men who
relied on shoplifting want no part of strong-arming anyone or the more serious punishments
that come with robbery.
These men had previously engaged in crimes like robbery, motor vehicle theft, burglary, and drug
sales but soon recognized that shoplifting could be a viable alternative in spite of the association that
shoplifting might have being less macho. As drug users who need a supply of fast cash, shoplifting
for profit is a crime accessible to men and women alike. On the streets where the men use and buy
drugs, shoplifting is as commonplace for men as sex work is for women. This is a bit of an anomaly,
given that, ‘‘gender inequality is a salient feature of most criminal subcultures’’ (Jacobs & Miller,
1998, p. 550; see also, Maher, 1997; Maher & Daly, 1996; Steffensmeier & Terry, 1986).
Elaborating on what might seem like an odd comparison at first, Sonny whose father died from a
heroin overdose when he was just 7 years old, is just one of the subjects who have developed an
analogy between shoplifting for men and prostitution for women. He remarks, it is ‘‘just a male form
of prostitution.’’ Likewise, recognizing the array of mechanisms he can use to earn money on the
streets, Frank, who has a high school education and started using heroin at age 23, draws parallels
between male shoplifting and female prostitution. From his perspective, sex work is simply the best
way for a woman to earn money with low risk and high payoffs and so is shoplifting the same cal-
culus for the men. He says:

There is different ways people make money but shoplifting is so easy. Like a guy can’t prostitute, I mean
some guys can, I mean I’m not that type of guy. You know what I mean? If I was a woman, I would be a
prostitute. So shoplifting that’s like the best way to make money. It’s like prostitution for men.

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The men seem to be actively engaged in constructing shoplifting as naturally masculine as prostitu-
tion is ‘‘naturally’’ feminine. There is no moral judgment of female prostitutes as ‘‘selling their
souls,’’ rather one gets the sense from these male narratives that prostitutes are just ‘‘doing what girls
do’’ almost similar to ‘‘boys will be boys’’ and misbehave. Only, now, conveniently, the nature of
the misbehavior need not be aggressive.
Frank’s comment, like the others in the sample, reflects what scholars such as Steffensmeier and
Schwartz (2004) note about gender segregation and institutional sexism in criminal networks. It is
prominent. It is just assumed that the easiest option for a woman trying to get cash fast would be to
sell her sex. As Caputo (2008a, p. 131) similarly notes, ‘‘the demand for sex work implicit in the
neighborhood drug culture (is) . . . normalized by men and women alike.’’ Whether Frank knows that
soliciting homosexual sex in this environment would bring both physical and psychological risk or if
he perceives a lack of women customers for male sex workers, the idea of a man selling his body for
income is quickly dismissed as being something that only a certain ‘‘type’’ of guy would or could do.
As the men see it playing out on the streets, the parallel alternative to the highly accessible eco-
nomic crime of sex work is not a traditional male crime like robbery, but shoplifting—with its see-
mingly abundant payoff and low risk. Perhaps there are cultural gendered boundaries that the men
are and are not willing to cross—doing sex work as men may go ‘‘too far.’’ Perhaps simply exploring
this possibility especially as a potentially homosexual transaction would bring its own different set
of ‘‘big consequences.’’ Although shoplifting is not considered masculine, it is not considered so
feminine as to break these boundaries. At the same time, these men do seem to be engaging in
defining shoplifting ‘‘up’’ perhaps in defense of their masculinity. In other words, the selection of
shoplifting as a crime seems to play an important role in the expression of gender for the
working-class male drug user.

Free to use. Shoplifters know they will most likely face an arrest at some point. Street smart and
knowledgeable about local criminal justice practices, the men know that with their crime producing
less harm, shoplifting normally carries lighter sanctions than more serious economic crimes. Still, as
addicts the possibility of incarceration brings not only the loss of liberty, but the loss of regular
access to the reason they give for shoplifting in the first place, their drug. Thus, they say, another
reason to shoplift over other crimes is simply that their freedom, which is very much intertwined
with their freedom to use, is much less at stake even if they are apprehended. As Michael notes about
the comparative risk of sentencing for shoplifting:

It’s less risky, it’s a lighter sentence for stealing than there is for drugs, cuz for heroin for each bag you
get is a year or something like that . . . Now for stealing I’ll be on a low program, a slap on the wrist and
that’s it. I may get PTI [pretrial intervention] or a year probation. I really don’t have to worry.

With lesser penalties comes more freedom. The threat of being incapacitated, taken off the streets
and away from drugs matters significantly as the men need to maintain freedom of movement.
So, any hiccup in the daily routine of getting and using drugs is devastating, and incarceration is
something to avoid as much as possible.
Johnny speaks about being raised in a ‘‘house full of people, where my father was trying to take
care of us all. So I had to get a job so I was able to get stuff and some of the stuff that I couldn’t get
myself, I stole it and it was just like a snowball effect.’’ Johnny has a heroin habit that is a bundle a
day or ‘‘about $150.’’ Johnny is also a homeless father who was raised in a working-class suburb He
dropped out of school in 10th grade, and at the age of 18, he began heroin after his father’s death. He
likes shoplifting for income because it carries a lower risk of incarceration than robbery, burglary,
and other more serious crimes. He knows this because he served almost 6 years in prison for
burglary. Being out of jail is essential so that he can sustain his habit:

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Caputo and King 57

I want to keep getting high; if I go to jail, then I’m not going to get high anymore. It is easier just to go in a
store and steal. Like robbing somebody or beating them up and take their money is riskier, but I could just
go in a store and walk right out with my pants filled out or whatever and just come out and sell it . . . I
won’t rob a house so that’s like big time jail, you know what I mean or stealing a car, that’s like years,
shoplifting is not that bad. They don’t put you in prison. A lot of the time they just let you go, they just
write you a summon . . . most of the time they didn’t charge me and some of them were reduced and
pretty much I just pay a fine.

Johnny’s number one priority is keeping the flow of heroin going. Selecting anything other than sho-
plifting would not make sense in light of that goal.
Penalties for shoplifting are so much less severe than alternative economic crimes like drug sell-
ing and robbery, motor vehicle theft, and burglary that choosing not to use it for fast cash seems to
the men unnecessarily dangerous, even illogical. Even after several convictions for shoplifting over
his long criminal career, Sal explains his reasons to persist with it as his major hustle.

I don’t care if I get arrested and I don’t worry what the Judge tells me. I’ve been arrested for shoplifting 2
times out of a hundred thousand. It’s basically not something to be too concerned about. Sometimes I tell
myself okay well, excuse my language, I say fuck it, I’m gonna go, if I get caught, I get caught. If I get
caught, I know I ain’t gonna get that much time [incarcerated]. Police are out to catch the violent crimes.
There’s people that run around and actually killing people or hurting people, ya know, selling drugs.
They want the big stuff not the little itty bitty guys like me. They want the people with the guns.

Thoughtful about punishment and harm to themselves and others, the men know that shoplifting just
does not compare to alternative violent and drug offenses. Knowledgeable about crimes and punish-
ments, Sonny describes why his ‘‘career move’’ is a good one:

It’s less risky because you know you’re not going to go to prison for a very, very long time. Stealing a
little miscellaneous item from stores as to where if I steal a car I can get five years. If I steal some Tylenol
from a store, you know what I mean? Time is time, jail time is jail time but prison time is years, years, 2
years, 3 years, or better.

Demonstrating their agency, these drug users are able to recognize the weight between criminal
rewards and potential punishment as quite clearly skewed. This is a practical motivator, as is the
economic benefit of the offense. Knowing that an individual person is not apt to suffer physical
injury because of their crime and the men will not risk being harmed, shoplifting is easily a sensible
alternative. For these men, shoplifting as a financial resource has to be seen as no less masculine,
important, or profitable than conventional forms of work or other crime. The overriding justification
for shoplifting is the profitability factor. Their choice is a logical one measured by physical risk, ben-
efit, and harm.

The price you pay. In the women’s evaluations of risk, the choice of shoplifting might not appear as
clear as the explanations offered by the men. Compared to the almost trivial sanctions for women
prostituting in these areas (fines, detention, and, in some cases, short stays in jail), sanctions for sho-
plifting are more serious say the women. Still, as Sandra states, the criminal penalties she experi-
enced for shoplifting might be more punitive than those she experienced for sex work—jail and
probation compared to a citation—they are part of the job.

With shoplifting, I get locked up, I get out, I get probation. I get busted again, I get probation. I might go
see my probation officer twice and stop. Every time I got locked I get probation. But with tricking, I just
get a citation.

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58 Criminal Justice Review 40(1)

Sandra’s jail time was for shoplifting. She did 4 months 1 time, 9 months another, and was ordered to
probation many times, but she kept with the crime because it was the most profitable for her. Risk
does not drive her crime choice; profitability does.
For others the risk of incarceration weighs more heavily. Although many of the male shoplifters
feared arrest and incarceration because it would mean an imminent interruption to their drug use, the
women seemed more concerned with the loss of what little authority they did have left over their
lives. As Grace says:

If you lose, you lose a lot because you’re in jail and you’re told how to live—right? What you can do,
what you can’t do, and sometimes they’ll talk to you like you’re a piece of shit, but that’s the price you
have to pay. . . . Emotionally, it really does something to you.

The loss of control over one’s autonomy inherent in being locked up is something the women sho-
plifters express. Although the men and women shared an affinity for their relative freedom and this
was undoubtedly related to a fear of ‘‘getting sick’’ (not being able to use), the men do not likewise
stress the loss of independence as the women do.
For the women then, they know that compared to sex work, formal sanctions are more severe, but
they chose it anyway. For the men, they know that the criminal sanctions are much less severe. From
this point of view, it makes perfect sense that men chose it. However, as men living in a culture over-
whelmingly dominated by male control and influence, the choice of a ‘‘career’’ that occupies such a
comparatively low cultural status (e.g., itty bitty guys like me), when compared to the ‘‘drug deal-
ers’’ and ‘‘gangbangers,’’ might be more threatening to a masculine identity. Thus, the men just like
the women must further rationalize their choice by pointing to potential benefits and advantages of
shoplifting that go beyond the obvious (e.g., fast cash and easy cash).

Rewards
No one’s chump. Although some of the men say they would prefer to work conventional jobs and
would have been in construction and laboring positions if the circumstances supported that choice,
the money and flexibility through shoplifting make legal work or other crimes seem almost illogical.
They point out that 2 weeks of those earnings can easily be spent on drugs in 2 days.
Similarly, according to their explanations, a man who shoplifts over legal work is not unmanly or
‘‘lazy.’’ Rather he is a smart, reasonable man who resolves the dilemma of money and work logically
and, doing so, affords himself power in the process. Compared to the women, however, the men
seem less inclined to align shoplifting with legal work but do talk about shoplifting as a job. Vito’s
sentiment illustrates this line of reasoning characteristic of the men’s responses:

I am not saying [that I] am not lazy or can’t work. I can work; it’s just easier for me to go to shoplifting.
Why should I work 2 weeks to get paid or work 5 days when I can get the [same] money in 3 hr, 4 hr? You
know how much [money] you can do [earn] out here? It depends on what I get. I can make 200 dollars 1
day, I can make a thousand dollar in 1 day or I can make 50 dollars in 1 day. I went into Lowes last week
and I made 1200 dollars in that 1 day.

Vito is clearly describing pride in his decision to shoplift for him as opposed to doing something else
for money, even full-time legal work. He frames the choice as the product of a strict utilitarian cost–
benefits analysis. Similarly, Frank explains:

It’s about the money. I’m in it for the money. I’m boostin’ because I need the money. It’s very easy and
there’s always somebody wanting to buy the stuff. I stole $1,000 worth of stuff this week at least. It’s
hard to work (a legitimate job) when I can get that kind of money.

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Framing his choice to shoplift as a job, Carlo makes an analogy to physically demanding construc-
tion work:

I’m actually a hard worker. I did construction. With this [shoplifting] you make a plan first, when you
build a house, you have to make a plan first how you build it, yep. [Customers say] say bring me this,
bring me that. I give it to them much, much, less money than it costs, about half the price, or I deal it for
heroin. It’s good money.

Frank, Vito, and other men make sense of their choice of shoplifting as the product of cold, hard
rationality, not as a failure of nerves or confidence to succeed at a legal job or at a more aggressive
crime choice. In this way, they are able to not only retain a masculine self-appraisal but quite pos-
sibly to fortify it.
From their point of view, the men get the ‘‘job’’ done and after a few scores find it difficult not to
see ‘‘sticking a gun in someone’s face’’ or doing a ‘‘nine-to-five job’’ as ‘‘suckers’’’ work. Michael
knows firsthand about violence from his 2 years dealing heroin before making the switch to shoplift-
ing. He says of shoplifting, ‘‘I see it as something really good that’s worth a lot of money and you
don’t have to deal with the violence [associated with selling ‘dope’ on the streets of Camden].’’ The
subjective interpretation of shoplifting as smart and savvy also functions to neutralize any embar-
rassment a man on the street might feel for participating in a crime so commonly thought of in this
context as a crime that doesn’t measure up to a type of urban city, gang-related masculinity (see E.
Anderson, 1999). This is similar to the findings by Copes and Hochstetler (2003) of crack users hus-
tling for money, who construct themselves as thoughtful men with high status in opposition to the
stigmatized image of the ‘‘crackhead.’’
Don, however, who had earned his general equivalency diploma and recalls his father also steal-
ing, is the exception to this line of reasoning. His view provides an illuminating contrast to the
majority of the group. Although the others narrate themselves as willful agents making decisions
with their financial needs in mind, Don cannot separate shoplifting from his idea of masculinity. His
inability to express masculinity through the more traditional notions of tough, physical, ‘‘manly’’
occupations shows in his explanation.

I did construction, siding, (and) decks. It’s just when I caught in the drug habit and you’re sick and you
can’t go to work, so then, you go out shoplifting. I stopped for a year and then, went back on, (then I
would) get a job for six months, support my habit that way, (then) shoplift a couple of months and get
myself back together, work, shoplift, get a job, crazy circle. It’s a terrible way of life. It’s embarrassing.

As Don’s point of view seems to embrace the traditional, hegemonic view of masculinity—to be a
man means to work hard at physically demanding and honest job for income. To admit the need for
shoplifting to feed his addiction means he is weak and powerless, a clashing reality to his view of
masculinity. This differs from the explanations of the other men even while positioning the crime as
akin to prostitution, clearly a highly feminized alternative. They take a different view of shoplifting,
seeing it as highly accessible and productive—turning it into ‘‘smart work’’ makes it okay.
The men frame their crime selection as placing them ‘‘above’’ the kind of gendered cultural script
of the street or the oppression of a regular nine-to-five job—they are no chumps, they are smarter
than the rest. The advantage of their crime selection is that they escape these two bleak options. The
women also gain psychological advantages through shoplifting.

Independence and self-mastery. Like becoming a cross-country runner rather than a basketball point
guard, choosing shoplifting over sex work brings with it less dependence on others for success.
Although many female professional shoplifters rely on hacks (regular drivers who take them to the

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60 Criminal Justice Review 40(1)

targets, see Caputo, 2008a) and on developing a stable niche of buyers (goods disposal networks),
their reliance on other criminal networks is of a different type and quality than is involved in sex
work. Although the lucrative drug trade and sex work networks are controlled by men (T. L. Ander-
son, 2005; but women can also become successful in the business of drug dealing, see Grundetjern &
Sandberg, 2012), a shoplifting woman can be her ‘‘own boss’’ more fully. In fact, the women in this
study seem to have developed and maintained a more stable network of buyers (usually corners
stores) to depend on her supply of goods compared to the men whose buyers are more often drug
sellers. With this for the women especially, comes the additional benefit of feeling proud—beyond
the fast and easy cash that both men and women enjoy. Deanna boasts, she is good at what she does:

They know they good and within that circle, other people know they’re good, so when you’re a good
booster and you come within that circle, you’re in there and they say you know Deanna don’t you? And
they say, yea I know that’s a bad bitch, boy. She’ll steal your ass off. That’s something to be proud of.

There is no one else to take credit for the boosting that Deanna does, it is hers and hers alone. This
sense of ownership over this criminal occupation is reflected also in the sense of self-reliance and
satisfaction that Lucy says she gets from shoplifting, ‘‘I shoplift for drugs. I need money for the
drugs. . . . It never became a challenge. But I’m good at it. Not having to ask anybody for nothing.’’
Shoplifting also allows her to acquire basic necessities, such as clothes for herself without asking a
pimp for a safe john, without asking a partner for cash; her cheaper merchandise speaks for itself.
She admits that her primary motive is to fund her drug habit, but the pride that she feels in being
able to take care of her own needs is also important to her.
The two characteristics of shoplifting—fast money and easy money—are for the women, gender
neutral. The men and the women talk about these two benefits of the crime in similar ways; both
groups are drawn to the crime for these primary reasons. Women, however, also stress the added
benefit of independence (i.e., from a partner or from a pimp). The men and women also diverge
in their talk about alternative criminal options, those criminal hustles to which they compare sho-
plifting. Men use characteristically male crimes as points of comparison, like robbery, motor vehicle
theft, drug selling, and burglary. They draw parallels between shoplifting for men and prostitution
for women, illustrating the popularity of prostitution for women locally.

Self-respect. Unlike the men and quite unsurprisingly, the women’s crime reference point is not typi-
cally robbery or drug selling but sex work. Sex work is their primary alternative and they know this
because they are active participants in the street-level drug culture. One of the motivators for men to
select shoplifting over other crimes is the lower physical risk involved compared to other available
offenses. This is not the case for the women. The women reference shoplifting as posing more risk
for punishment but less harm to others but more importantly to themselves, both physically and emo-
tionally than alternatives, because their reference point—as women in the urban drug scene—is sex
work. The more lenient punishments associated even with long-term sex work offending appear to
be inconsequential to women shoplifters, Connie says:

You can be a prostitute, I don’t understand that, and they get locked up and they get right out. I’ve been in
video court where you’ve got a woman that got 20 different alias from prostitution and her ass will get
right out of jail that same day.

As Connie’s comments illustrate, she is simply baffled that the system does not seem to take sex
crimes seriously as would be demonstrated by dishing out longer sentences. Sex work, she and other
women know from experience, is treated more leniently than shoplifting, but in their minds, sex
work produces more harm. Contrary to the strong subcultural norm of the street that women will

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Caputo and King 61

engage in sex crimes to earn quick cash, the explanations given by the women who shoplift go
against this grain. In addition to the profitability of the crime, the women see shoplifting as less
harmful primarily in terms of self-appraisal and self-respect. Shoplifting requires skills and strategy,
but it does not require that a woman commodify her physical body to make the crime work (see van
der Bruggen, 2013). Rosary’s explanation of shoplifting captures this point that this crime affords
women self-respect:

Stealin’s wrong and all but I want to say I have a lot of respect for myself. I mean, I felt like just sleeping
with a lot of different men. It wasn’t something that I ever did [though]. I guess I felt it was more respect-
ful to steal than prostitute.

Not unlike the men who chose shoplifting over aggressive crimes, the women who chose shoplifting
do not ‘‘buy into’’ their supposed street-gendered nature by choosing sexual crimes. They are not
even necessarily concerned about social status of shoplifters compared to sex workers. Rather, once
the women do shoplifting, some experience a feeling of self-respect, self-mastery, and autonomy.
These positive feelings are expressed and seem to tip the scales in favor of shoplifting despite a cul-
ture that expects them to do otherwise and a criminal justice system that seems to punish more when
they are caught shoplifting or selling their products than if they are caught selling their sex.

Discussion
Shoplifting, the men and women reason is the best, most profitable and realistic alternative to other
available hustles in the urban drug culture of Camden and Philadelphia and conventional forms of
work. Overall, the more experienced they became and the more they enjoy rewards, the more comfor-
table the men and women say they feel about their choices. As criminologists have noted, the more
offenders participate in the street or urban drug culture, the further embedded in this life they become,
effectively narrowing their opportunities to maintain, even aspire to conventional roles (Jacobs &
Wright, 1999; McCarthy & Hagan, 1995). Along the way, most of these men and women come to con-
struct an image of what they do and why they do it in ordinary work terms. It is, after all, a job.
Ridgeway (2007; also see Ridgeway & Correll, 2004) discusses the relationship between two dis-
tinct identities, that is, one experienced in the workplace environment, a ‘‘workplace identity,’’ and
gender identity. Interestingly, she finds that the perception of self that one maintains generally—
compared to in the context of work—is dominated by the actions consistent with manifest goals and
outcomes of the task. In other words, when one is working, one is a worker before one is a ‘‘she’’ or a
‘‘he.’’ The working identity concept provides a framework that may help to understand how shoplif-
ters of both sexes in this hyper-masculinized urban drug culture can maintain a view of what they do
to earn money that does not undermine their gender identity, which we assume is fluid and dynamic.
As shoplifters, men and women who chose shoplifting are aware that they are going against the
grain of gendered criminal expectations, but how do they explain this? Men are aware that they are
failing to reflect a hegemonic construction of masculinity (Connell, 1985, 1995). However, in this
perception, men struggle to both present and create a vision of masculinity that while appearing
‘‘new’’ in this context might actually harken back to a day when masculinity could be defined by
a traditional working-class mentality that stresses ‘‘smartness’’ and ‘‘autonomy’’ (see, i.e., Brother-
ton, 1996; W. B. Miller, 1958). In these accounts of drug-addicted males who shoplift, we hear the
value of a more moderated masculinity coming to the fore.
Our findings are also consistent with Haenfler (2004) who discusses a variety of new or evolved
masculine identities that are generated in part by their ‘‘location’’ (see also Connell & Messersch-
midt, 2005) within a masculine ‘‘space’’ (e.g., a social movement or a criminal subculture). The men
in this study selected shoplifting over other options for earning money, both legal and illegal.

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Although they might have been able to select other forms of work, like their examples of construc-
tion or laboring in the legal realm and perhaps even robbery on the streets, their options for earning
money are bounded by personal factors (like drug addiction and criminal justice involvement) and
structural conditions (like opportunities in the urban street culture). The men could have (and often
had) sold drugs on the streets, but that option presents unnecessary risks, such as in violence and stiff
sanctions. They could have also sold sex but reject that as devaluing and impractical.
Across the criminal justice system, women accomplish gender by ‘‘redoing’’ it and acting or
thinking against gender expectations (West & Zimmerman, 2009; also see Grundetjern & Sandberg,
2012; Jones, 2010). Morash and Haarr’s (2012) study of the working identities of women police sup-
ports the idea that it need not only be girl gang members expressing ‘‘oppositional femininity’’ or
otherwise disadvantaged drug-addicted women who resolve identity by restructuring notions of gen-
der. In their study, female officers similarly ‘‘flipped the hierarchy of gender differences by devalu-
ing ‘maleness’ and pointing out its negative features’’ (Morash & Haarr, 2012, p. 6). The identity
strategies used by these high-ranking and low-ranking women officers are perhaps a little less easily
described within the context of survival as female offenders often are (see Jones, 2010). Yet, the
ways that women living and working on the street describe their motivations and rationales for doing
what they do demonstrate similar agency.
The men and women in this study are quite able to revise and develop new, unique and unlimited
ideas about what is masculine and what is feminine, playing with each construction to their benefit.
Risman (2009, p. 84) argues ‘‘Why categorize innovative behavior as new kinds of gender, new fem-
ininities and masculinities, rather than notice that the old gender norms are losing their currency?’’
In shoplifting, it seems that these drug users have identified a mechanism for doing just that, the
gender norms are quieted and their entrepreneurial core emerges.
Although both the men and the women in this study talk regrettably of having found themselves
ready to choose crime to finance their everyday, most take control of their choice demonstrating and
agency in action. Furthermore, while their crime choice might carry comparatively low status, many
men and most women are able to conceptualize their crime work in ways that offer them meaning,
even a personal capital, which reinforces their commitment to the work.
New empirical and theoretical research might consider how gender fluidity, agency, and work-
place identity play out in other criminal hustles thought to be stereotypically feminine or masculine
and those that fit somewhere in between, such as panhandling and unlicensed taxi service. Both the
men and women talk about shoplifting as a job and sometimes even, a career choice or occupation.
Bridging work in the area of sociology of occupations and studies of criminal offenders and drug
users could lead to new theoretical advances for studying economic crime and drug users for those
crimes.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References
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Author Biographies
Gail A. Caputo, PhD, is an associate professor of criminology at Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey. Her
recent research focuses on women in trouble with the law and the sociology of crime and deviance. Her most
recent book is A Halfway House for Women: Oppression and Resistance (Northeastern University Press, 2014).
Anna King, PhD, is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Georgian Court University, New Jersey. Her
research focuses on social identity and crime and on attitudes toward offenders. Her current research explores
the radicalization of women in urban areas.

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