Jugando un Hoyo

Since the level of false claims was an unknown entity, it was logical to ask offenders if they themselves or anyone they knew had made false claims. It is not altogether clear whether offenders would be more or less likely than the general population to make false claims. Previous research into offending behaviour has shown that ‘those who do big bad things also usually do little bad things’ (Chenery et al., 1999; Roach, 2004; 2007). If phone thieves have no need to make false claims because it is easier to steal a new phone than deal with the process of making a false claim, they might underrepresent the true extent of false claims. If, however, phone thieves are happy to make false claims as part of a repertoire of dishonest behaviour, then false claims might be higher within the phone thief population than within the general population.

190 Section VI: Snowball contacts, demographics and closure

In the final stage of the interview, participants were asked whether they knew of any other inmates who might like to take part in the interviews. This was intended to create a snowball effect, where one participant identified another knowledgeable participant and so on. However none of the participants identified anyone else, presumably because this would have been seen as ‘grassing up’ their fellow inmates.

The demographics of participants (age, gender, geographic region of abode and ethnicity) were obtained. Participants were presented with showcards of the various options. Numbers were assigned to the response options, such as age range or ethnic group, so that participants could avoid using descriptive language if they desired.

At the very end of the interview, participants were asked if they had any questions or concerns, or any other issues they wished to raise. They were then thanked for their participation and told who to contact within their institution if they had any questions at a later stage. This was designed to leave participants feeling that their contribution had been valuable, and that they had control over the information they had given, even at a later stage. This had the benefits of creating happier participants, and minimising any risk of negative rumours spreading about the interviews through the institutions thereby potentially decreasing the number of willing participants.

Criticisms of the methodology

Some criticisms of previous research into decision-making have been described in Chapter 3. The methodological limitations of the interviews with mobile phone thieves can be summarised as:

(1) Whether the results from a sample of 40 incarcerated thieves are generalisable to the wider offending population;

191 (2) Whether the hypothetical scenarios presented at interview allow conclusions to be drawn about real-world situations.

(3) Whether the offenders’ accounts of previous behaviour or hypothetical behaviour are valid: some may exaggerate to impress the interviewers, while others might repress some details to avoid perceived judgement.

(4) For this particular interview instrument, how much the focus on phone theft throughout the interview generated biased responses in both students and offenders.

In reference to (1), whether the responses are applicable to the wider offending population, it seems unlikely that the thieves interviewed differ vastly from those in other geographical areas. However, it is not possible to assess how representative is the range of experience within the sample compared to the wider population. This could be assessed by interviewing larger samples, and samples from different geographic locations, complemented by scrutiny of the repeat-offender literature. Furthermore, the sample could be extended in future research to include phone thieves who have not been caught, in order to assess whether their choices vary considerably from those who are arguably less successful (Walsh, 1986).

In reference to (2), the hypothetical scenarios presented were not intended to fully replicate real-world situations. The six matched pairs of phone aimed to identify those factors verbalised by offenders when they made between-phone choices, regardless of other situational factors. The 23 deterrent designs aimed to compare the deterrent effects relative to the other designs, and to elucidate the reasons why. Future research could ask offenders to verbalise their strategies when selecting people and phones in a real-world setting (see for example Logie et al., 1992). This would identify the wider situational factors and further victim-related factors considered by thieves, which may be missing from

192 the rational choice event model resulting from this research and presented in Chapter 6.

There are few checks available on (3) the validity of the offenders’ accounts, although within-sample comparisons of responses should identify any severe outliers. One comparison was made between offenders’ claimed knowledge about SIM blocking and IMEI blacklisting against their knowledge demonstrated during the interview. Future research could replicate Indermaur’s (1996) methodology of comparing self-reports with prosecution or police files. For the present results, it is hoped that any minimisers (who hide the worst details) will on aggregate cancel out the effect of any maximisers (who exaggerate the negative aspects of their behaviour), if they exist at all.

Finally, in reference to (4), the possibility that a focus on mobile phone theft and the possibility that the order of the questions might have generated demand characteristics, i.e. increased the probability of exaggeration, false reporting or its opposite. The initial sections of the questionnaire were deliberately kept general in order to allow exploration of the offenders’ genuine knowledge levels of phone theft. Therefore, a cross-check for likely exaggeration was possible, when analysing whether the responses of more and less experienced thieves differed. Furthermore, the aim of the sections asking about choices between matched pairs and the deterrence effect of the 23 designs were deliberately designed to ask about choices within these parameters presented, not to ask about choice rates in the real world per se. Again, a cross-check of reported preferences (preferences between model pairs) and data from NMPCU allowed some assessment of how accurate the offender responses were. The possibility of exaggerated between-model choices, is genuine, because participants were presented with only one pair of phones at a time. However, the aim of these questions was as much to identify any factors used to differentiate, and not the preference strength per se. Some exploration of how any preferences stated

193 were reflected in real world phone theft data was possible. These analyses are presented in Chapter 6. Further analysis of the types of phones discarded, such as those handed in to stolen property departments, would develop the work presented here further: An analysis of the models discarded and their characteristics would enable an assessment of whether discarded phones are the corollary of those most commonly stolen, i.e. the older and less valuable models. In effect, such an analysis would attempt falsification of the hypothesis proposed here and supported by the evidence so far, that more valuable and modern phones are preferred by thieves, even opportunistic ones who happen across a lost handset.

Conclusion

This chapter has described the stages of identifying a suitable sample of convicted mobile phone thieves and of designing an interview schedule to be used for the research. After defining the aims of the interviews, the interview schedule was designed following generic sociological and specific criminological research advice concerning questionnaire design and interview conduct. In parallel, much effort was spent contacting prisons and Young Offenders Institutions within the Midlands area in order to secure research participants. The interview design aimed to minimise the compounding effects of methodological issues including interviewer conduct; question wording and order; and the hypothetical nature of the scenarios presented. While every effort was made to minimise these effects, the interview was conducted in the context of an interview about mobile phone theft: therefore all biases can not have been avoided. There remains some risk that offending behaviour, and between model variability, were inflated due to the false scenarios presented. However, comparison of stated preferences with real world police data allows some assessment of the scale of any inflation. Future research should focus on the corollary: an analysis of ‘by catch’ or phones handed in to lost property

194 departments. The results of the interviews are presented in the following chapter.

195 Chapter 6: Results of the interviews

The final data set Offenders

The final data set consisted of 40 male offenders aged 16 to 30 yrs old, who had been involved in mobile phone theft. The majority (77%) were aged between 16 and 20yrs. In all 85% (n=34) of participants were sourced from local YOIs and a local prison, with the remainder (n=6) being identified by two local Youth Offending Services. Table 6.1 below displays the breakdown of both offender and student interview sources. Those from the YOIs and the prison were interviewed on the wings in which they were incarcerated. Those from Youth Offending Services were interviewed in a variety of locations ranging from a static caravan home, to a shed while they were taking part in rehabilitative Art Therapy.

Students

In all, 45 male students were asked the questions in sections II (matched pairs) and III (23 deterrent designs) of the interview schedules, and for demographic information. It made no sense to ask them about their offending behaviour. The majority of student responses came from the BSc Product Design and Technology and BA Industrial Design & Technology (82.2%; n=37). Six were enrolled on the MSc in Criminology; and a further two (4.4%) randomly selected students were stopped on campus and asked to take part in the questionnaire. The process of randomly selecting students on campus was not pursued because identify willing participants was time consuming. There were no females in the final offender data set, and so female student responses were omitted from the final analysis.

The final sample is geographically convenient, and focused on samples from the East Midlands. It therefore risks not being generalisable to the whole of the UK.