ABSTRACT
Burglary is exciting, breaking in, searching for things, finding other things, taking them and trying not to get caught with them, is highly stimulating because of the element of uncertainty, of not knowing for sure. With burglary there is the additional reward of trophies or money collected during the dare, all taking place in an atmosphere of considerable excitement. House burglars use more scattered hours, favouring the morning much more than the non-dwelling house men, but for both groups the afternoon is unpopular, the only people who would usually use this time being either drummers on spec. Excluding ‘non-monetary’ forms of burglary, the gain can represent the satisfaction of one of four quite different needs. Past performance in anything is a good guide to future performance, and burglars who have gravitated towards a particular form of burglary are unlikely to alter drastically their way of doing things.
