ABSTRACT
This chapter updates and greatly expands the case study of Sam Goodman's fencing activity found in Steffensmeier's award-winning 1986 book The Fence: In the Shadow of Two Worlds. Sam Goodman, was a long-time thief, fence, and quasi-legitimate businessman. The chapter combines Sam's colorful narrative accounts with substantive commentary by the authors to provide a more nuanced portrayal of criminal careers, illegal enterprise, and the broad landscape comprising the entity called "crime." His life as far as crime is concerned went swoosh. First on it was mainly burglary, and then it was burglary with a little fencing mixed in. Right off in American City he get a job at this greasy spoon place—as a cook, a short order cook. When he first hooked up with Jesse, it was Hoyt. Not much of a burglar, was really half-assed, but was solid. The good burglar has more contacts than the ordinary thief, too.
