"American criminology was born through a merger of theory and multiple methods that addressed the ecology
of crime, the learning of criminal behavior, and the careers of law-breakers. The 'case study' was central to that
development, filling in the qualitative personal details that illustrated the general theories that would continue
to endure into the twenty-first century. Steffensmeier and Ulmer's
Sam Goodman, was a long-time thief, fence, and quasi-legitimate businessman. He had a criminal career that spanned
fifty years, beginning in his mid-teens and ending with his death when he was in his mid-sixties. Confessions of
a Dying Thief is an in-depth ethnographic study of Sam and his world based on continuous contact with him for many
years, on multiple interviews with his network of associates in crime and business, and on a series of interviews
with him shortly before he died. The book 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. The book 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."
To more fully understand pathways into and out of crime as well as the social organization of illegal enterprise,
the authors propose an integrative learning-opportunity-commitment framework that combines differential association/social
learning theory and an extended conceptualization of criminal opportunity with a three-fold theory of commitment
to crime. This framework offers an integrated and more complete way of understanding mechanisms that underlie criminal
offending and criminal careers. It also recognizes the complexity and scope of the criminal landscape and its embeddedness
in the fabric of the larger society, including its criminal justice system.
Sam's illness and death are a sobering backdrop throughout the whole book. However, Confessions is not just a dying
thief's intimate confessions. Rather, it is a rare and penetrating journey into the dynamics of criminal careers
and the social organization of criminal enterprise, as experienced by a veteran thief and fence and his network
of key associates.