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." He was arrested six, maybe seven times in American City. By the state police usually, once or twice by the local cops. What happened is, the state cops pop a couple of guys for breaking into houses and stealing antiques. Same day the cops pick up Reggie and Rocky. They're hammering them, playing off one against the other.
