Body switching and related adaptations in the resale of stolen vehicles. Script elaborations and aggregate crime learning curves

The paper provides a case study of a sustained crime expansion. The case st udy is offence-specific (motor vehicles stolen for resale purposes) and res tricted to a particular time frame (1974-92) and setting (a Canadian provin ce). 'How' offenders have collectively designed this crime increase is give n a salient analytical status and made to explain 'why' it occurred in the first place. As suggested by Cornish (1994) crimes can be analysed as behav ioural scripts of various complexity, and offending activities as the purpo sive experimentation and tinkering of such scripts. Our main argument is th at multiple innovations or script alterations have been successfully introd uced and adopted by a significant mix of motivated and suitable participant s, producing over time a cumulative or sustaining effect on yearly output o f unrecovered stolen vehicles. In order to document this 'aggregate learnin g' process we rely on a subset of police investigations on resale networks.