Regulating Markets for Stolen Property

Abstract

Each year, in Australia, property estimated to be valued at between two and three billion dollars is stolen from homes, shops, cars, factories and warehouses. Little of this property is recovered and returned to its owners or retained by burglars and thieves for their personal use. The remainder is sold or bartered, but the nature and extent of the re-distributional system for stolen property is little understood. This article is an attempt to understand property as a market for goods and services, which, like any other market, is subject to the influences of supply and demand and government regulation. First, it aims to analyse the interactions between the parties in marketing terms by regarding the participants not as individual burglars, thieves, receivers and accessories, as but as suppliers, distributors, retailers and purchasers. Secondly, it argues that current public knowledge of markets for stolen goods and their dynamics are impoverished. Finally, it suggests that a broad range of regulatory strategies can be brought to bear on these markets in order to influence the behaviour of actors within them.