Edwin Sutherland and Broadway Jones: The Professional Thief

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The Criminologist and His Criminal: The Case of Edwin H. Sutherland and Broadway Jones Author(s): Jon Snodgrass Source: Issues in Criminology, Vol. 8, No. 1 (SPRING 1973), pp. 1-17Published by: Social Justice/Global OptionsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/42909672Accessed: 30-03-2015 03:17 UTC

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ISSUES IN CRIMINOLOGY, VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1 (SPRING, 1973)

The Criminologist and His Criminal: The Case of Edwin H. Sutherland and Broadway Jones

Jon Snodgrass*

INTRODUCTION

Edwin H. Sutherland and Broadway Jones, criminologist and criminal, jointly published The Professional Thief in 1937. It was a book written "by a professional thief," and "annotated and interpreted" by Sutherland. Although Jones wrote the book, Sutherland got most of the credit; it is known almost exclusively as "Sutherland's book."1 This common oversight is only one of the many ways in which criminologists have traditionally slighted and subordinated the main subject of their studies, the criminal.

The Professional Thief is now considered a "classic" in criminology. It is a classic because of both its subject and its method; it is today, thirty-five years after its publication, the most authoritative statement on the subject of stealing as an occupation, and it is one of the few studies which has relied on the collaborative contribution by a criminal himself. Subsequent criminology has generally preferred to maintain a comfortable distance between the criminologist and the criminal. As Polsky has stated, "Criminologists can tell you about Sutherland's 'Chic Conwell,' but they can't give you comparable data on professionals of today . . ." (Polsky, 1967:115). Surely Sutherland did not think the work would not be superseded. He wrote, in fact, "It is submitted merely as a basis for further studies . . ." (Sutherland, 1937c:ix). One of the only "further studies" to have been conducted was by the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and

♦Jon Snodgrass received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Maryland in 1965 and 1967, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Los Angeles.

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2 ISSUES IN CRIMINOLOGY VOL. 8, NO. 1

Administration of Justice in 1967, a study which 'relied on interviews with fifty professional criminals in four cities by five "field consul- tants" over a two week period. By contrast Jones and Sutherland worked on The Professional Thief ' off and on, over a period of about five years. The President's Commission (1967) wrote that "Sutherland's book" was a "primary source" and "a classic description of theft as a way of life."

"Chic Conwell" was the pseudonym Sutherland gave Jones in the "Introduction." Sutherland thought the name "Jones" was an alias. And his suspicion was entirely justified for Jones used many aliases during his career, including Russell P. Joana, Russell P.Jonah, Thomas Read and Harry A. Bennett. In fact, Sutherland thought Jones' true name was Bennett, the name by which he was known to many people, including police and prison officials. For a long time the present writer also believed that Bennett was the real name of the professional thief and that "Jones" was just another alias. I am now confident that Jones was his true name. It was discovered by using background data to locate his birth certificate. "Broadway" was a sobriquet Jones attained in his early career utilizing his criminal talents in the New York theater district.

My interest in Jones' identity originally arose when I learned, in reading through Sutherland's files, that Jones might have come from a family of well-to-do Boston patricians who possibly had some connection with Harvard Law School. That connection, I imagined, could help explain how Jones was attracted to Sutherland and induced to write the book. Also, it was recorded in Sutherland's papers that Jones himself had possibly attended Harvard at one time. This fact I thought might have helped to account for the lucid and literary qualities of The Professional Thief and possibly even for Jones' success as a criminal.

Sutherland believed that professional thieves did not generally come from lower class backgrounds. He found Jones an attractive and articulate man, who must, therefore, have had some breeding. Although Jones was reticent about his past, Sutherland apparently knew enough to identify his family as residing in "comfortable circumstances" (Sutherland, 1937c:vi). Therefore, verification of Jones' family and higher education would have confirmed this understanding concerning class of origin and professional stealing, at least in this one case. What is more, a verification would have allowed Jones' case to serve as an excellent illustration that Harvard and the Puritan tradition have been responsible not only for our nation's greatest statesmen, scholars and men of culture, as E. Digby Baltzell (1966) would have it, but also for at least one of our most famous criminals as well. The discovery of



THE CRIMINOLOGIST AND HIS CRIMINAL 3

Jones' true name, therefore, opened the way for an investigation of his social class by a search for vital statistic records and other public documents. The findings indicate that Jones did not have this kind of fascinating and romantic background. Consequently, the common association of professional stealing with higher-class origins, usually based exclusively on The Professional Thief, might well be reconsidered. Jones' social class, and the subject of stealing and class structure, will be taken up subsequently. In addition, in this paper I would like to tell a little about the history of The Professional Thief ' how it came to be written, its authorship, and something about the personal and intellectual relationship between Jones and Sutherland. First, however, it seems appropriate to clarify some errors about the book itself.2

STEALING AS A CALLING

It is a common mistake to describe The Professional Thief as an autobiography, a biography, or a case study of a criminal. It is none of these. The Professional Thief is a monograph which tells how groups of men made a living by stealing, primarily by picking pockets, shop lifting and operating confidence games. It is not a personal account of Jones' career; it does not concern his life-history and causal entry into the world of crime. As Sutherland said, "This document is a description of the profession of theft as experienced by one professional thief" ( 1937c: v). In fact, Sutherland once wrote, ". . . the explanation of theft as a profession cannot be found in the life-history of one of the members of the profession" (1947:224). The book deals with the special techniques of stealing, the characteristics of the "mob," the variety of "rackets," the methods of arranging the "fix," and the more general topics of "The Thief and the Law," and "The Thief and Society." While there is a chapter on "The Social and Personal Life of the Thief," this was written in general terms and did not reflect Jones' personal situation. Much of the material, of course, was based on Jones' personal experiences and observations, but it certainly was not Jones' own autobiography.

From the manuscript Sutherland drew at least two interpretive principles concerning professional stealing. It was an organization- with status, consensus, traditions and roles- and it was a profession. To demonstrate its standing as a "profession," a list of characteristics was provided which exemplified the learned professions- technical skill, formal association, state regulation by licenses, a degree of monopoly and ethical standards. Sutherland argued that the kind of stealing




depicted by Jones met these requisites. One author has commented that the term professional "contained a heavy dose of irony" and that, "Sutherland probably never really intended to be taken literally when he called thieves 'professionals' ..." (Office of Law Enforcement Assistance, n.d.:2). To the contrary, I think that Sutherland was quite serious about his use of the term professional. Professional denoted to him a means of earning a living which required a high degree of skill, knowledge, planning and sophistication, and these attributes measured up, fully, to the most technical of employments. Perhaps Sutherland exaggerated when he claimed that the immunity professional thieves had from the law, and from punishment, by virtue of the fix, was equivalent to a license from the state. This may have been hyperbole, but probably not irony. Sutherland's populist background- agrarian roots, mid-western origins, provincial affiliations, urban resentments, and Baptist upbringing- indicates that the only irony in the conception of professionalism lay in the implication that thieves could be as specialized in stealing as doctors and lawyers.3 It is true, however, that when specific professions were mentioned, references were to "brick- layers" and "ballplayers," as well as doctors and lawyers (Sutherland, 1937c: 147; 1947:224). In this respect Sutherland used "profession" and "occupation" synonymously. This was not sloppy semantics, nor an incapacity to appreciate a distinction between the two terms. It was more accurately a reflection of Sutherland's sentiments toward prac- tioners of law and medicine; persistent sentiments which coincided with the esteem he held for businessmen, and that whole special class of suited, tied, white collar types. At one point Sutherland stated that because thieves learned their trade through "apprenticeship methods rather than through a professional school" it "should not be regarded as a learned profession" (Sutherland, 1937c:217) (Emphasis added). Steal- ing was therefore a form of artisanship or craftsmanship. Throughout the book the term professional thief was used in contradistinction to "amateur thief." Professional emphasized the expert skill involved in thieving as a livelihood.

Sutherland also interpreted professional stealing as the product of differential association. The Professional Thief has often been cited as another case, along with White Collar Crime (1949), in which Suther- land tried to demonstrate his theory of differential association. This citation overlooks the fact that The Professional Thief was published two years before the theory. Careful attention to the way differential association is used in The Professional Thief indicates that it meant different social contacts and interactions, not a network of learning experiences through which an individual was inducted into a criminal




way of life. The learning that was required to become a professional thief was certainly emphasized, but it was not called differential association. Learning was conceptualized mainly under the heading "The Profession of Theft as Organization," which in an earlier draft was called "The Profession of Stealing as Segregation." Under the heading "The Profession of Theft as Differential Association," Sutherland stressed that professional thieves were a breed of isolates confined to personal associations which were removed in many respects from the larger society. Thus, in this earlier period, differential association tended to mean associational segregation or "different associations" in the underworld. In this respect, the conception of the social order as divided into exclusive sectors helped prepare the way for the next generation of criminologists, many of whom were Sutherland's students, to move the discipline from the concept of "underworld" to the concept of "subculture."

The Professional Thief was not an etiological work, at least not in an overt sense. But it did have strong implications for contending causal theories. Theories which maintained that criminals were mentally ab- normal, or feeble-minded, or constitutionally inferior, were confronted with the planning, adroitness, knowledge, social sophistication, political acumen, organizational ability and mental stability of professional thieves. The book also had implications for class and poverty theories; professional thieves, it was maintained, derived from the higher classes, unimpoverished circumstances, and usually were not former juvenile delinquents.

The book presents a vivid description of part of the criminal "underworld," a world almost completely unknown and inaccessible to an outsider. Probably the only method to trespass into this domain was by means of an informant. Sutherland insisted that a knowledge of their life could only be gained by selection through, and long association with, professional thieves.4 The book disclosed the prevalence and the secure establishment of professional crime in the social order. The argot, the techniques, and the official agents in collusion, all tended to bring the reality of professional crime into the open. A lasting impression was to make the corruption and greed of public officials, not criminals alone, common knowledge. It showed that the demi-monde and grand-monde were not dissimilar and were engaged in no great moral conflict. In this respect Sutherland's early idea of "different associations" was contradicted by the evidence of thieves' extensive involvements and secret covenants with the men of the upperworld. Irwin's point in this regard is well made- the close contact with members of "respectable" institutions indicated that professional criminals




did not lurk in "clandestine haunts" and inhabit "subterranean underworlds" (1972:134).

Sutherland seemed to have a quiet admiration and genuine respect for professional thieves. He tended to ennoble their occupation. In his terms they were organized, efficient, intelligent, affable, reliable, deter- mined, attractive and fantastically loyal to one another. There was a fascination and subtle approbation of the fact that they were hard- working, well disciplined and honestly dishonest. They were "Wayward Puritans" of the underworld. The thief was an artisan, the rackets were their trade, and the mob was a mobile guild. Sutherland saw stealing as a calling.

SUTHERLAND'S INTRODUCTION TO JONES

Sutherland, while serving as a research professor at the University of Chicago in the early 1930's, was turned on to the professional thief

by Dr. Ben L. Reitman, a medical doctor, anarchist, wanderer, wobbly, intellectual, sociologist, gadfly of sociologists and lover of Emma Gold- man (1970). Reitman was described by Neis (The Hobo) Anderson as "The King of the Hobos" (1923:172-173). Reitman was an underworld

physician who, according to one of his letterheads, specialized in "the

diagnosis, prevention and treatment of venereal diseases and social

problems." Reitman had become acquainted with Jones sometime after

Jones' release from Leavenworth in 1932. Reitman, and another, unknown physician, offered a grant of $150, matched by $200 from the Social Science Research Committee, for Sutherland to use Jones in any way he pleased in his work. Jones was paid $100 per month for three months, during the depression, for writing the book. In a letter to Sutherland, Reitman said of Jones:

I repeat, I regard Broadway Jones as a find. He has something big and fine and highly intelligent within him. He has a smothered social conscience and a vision, and if we handle him right and don't let the parole officers bother him too much, we will all have occasion to be glad (Reitman, 1932).

After the draft manuscript was completed, Sutherland and Reit- man worked to have Jones discharged from parole. In a letter from Reitman to William A. McGrath, Chief of the Federal Probation Office in Chicago, Reitman described Sutherland's introduction to Jones in

greater detail:




Mr. Harry Bennett was discharged [released from Leavenworth] September 3, 1932, and a few days later came to me with an introduction from a former patient of mine. Bennett asked me if I knew where he could get a job as the job which he had was unsatisfactory. After a few conversations with him I was struck by his intelligence and colossal information about the anti-social group. Bennett said that he has 'squared it,' was off of 'dope' for life, recognized that society had some rights and was anxious to learn an honest, useful life. At the time he came to my office I was engaged in some literary criminological research work and offered to engage him to help me.5 After reading some of his material I was struck by his literary ability and his correlated knowledge of things pertaining to the underworld. I told my friend, Dr. W. A. Evans, of the Chicago Tribune about Mr. Bennett and he arranged a conference at the Union League Club. At the conferences there were present Dr. W. A. Evans, Prof. Frank O. Beck, of the Chicago Church Federation, Prof. Ernest Burgess of the University of Chicago, and Prof. Edwin H. Sutherland of the University of Chicago. They read some of the material that Mr. Bennett had prepared and were very much impressed by what he had written. I suggested that they put Mr. Bennett to work at criminological research. Professors Burgess and Sutherland took the matter up with the Trustees and secured a grant for him. For the past three months he has been doing research work for the University of Chicago (Reitman, 1933).

Jones and Sutherland began their collaboration in November, 1932. When the book was published Sutherland stated that:

I have organized the body of materials, written short connecting passages, and eliminated duplications as much as possible. In this organization, I have attempted to preserve the ideas, attitudes, and phraseology of the professional thief. The thief read the manuscript as organized and suggested corrections, which have in all cases been made (Sutherland, 1937c:v).

Sutherland did not mention that the thief also read, criticized and corrected Sutherland's "Introduction" and "Interpretation." There has always been speculation, however, over the extent to which Sutherland actually wrote the body of the manuscript himself. Sutherland's charac- teristic style seems evident throughout the document. The question is clarified somewhat in a letter from Jones to Sutherland after a compli- mentary copy of the book was received:

Many thanks for the copy of 'The Thief.' I read it with a great amount of interest and a great amount of confusion, too. Sometime I am going to ask you to take a copy and underline in red that which the thief wrote and in blue that which you wrote. You have accepted the philosophy of the thief so completely that it is impossible to identify




yours from his. If you had not done so it would be easy to isolate sentences and say that the thief did not say or write that.

I shall read the book again in an effort to identify something familiar. Even though he did not write certain things, I am sure the thief felt that way and wished that he had (Jones, 1937c).

Sutherland experienced some problems in having the work published. Shortly before printing, the University of Chicago Press requested a clearance on publishing rights. In June, 1937, Sutherland wrote to the Press:

I secured a statement from the professional thief who wrote the body of this manuscript. In addition, he was paid a weekly wage for writing under my direction. I do not seem to be able to locate his statement just now, but I am sure I can find it in the rather voluminous notes I have from him, and will send you a copy of it, if you desire (Sutherland, 1937a).

On the same day, Sutherland sent a letter to Jones:

After two other companies had turned me down, the University of Chicago Press agreed to publish 'The Professional Thief' and want to rush it through so that it will be on the market by the Christmas meeting of the sociologists in Atlantic City. Among other things, the Press asked me whether I have a clear-cut statement of publishing rights from the professional thief who wrote the body of the manuscript.

Since, according to the introduction to the manuscript, the professional thief who wrote this document died in 1933, the statement should be dated in 1933 or earlier.

Will you write out a statement something like this: 'I hereby relinquish all rights to the publication of the materials which I wrote on the professional thief under the direction of Edwin H. Sutherland in the years 1932 and 1933, and for which I was reimbursed at the time. Signed ' (Sutherland, 1937b).

Jones, a true con-artist, and never one to miss an angle, returned two such statements, one signed by R. P. Jones and the other by Louis Smith. Jones explained the second signature:

I have hurriedly typed the release as you requested and have added another for your 'confidential' files. This one you can hold in reserve just in case someone questions your source. The fact that you state in your preface that the writer is dead may cause someone to give birth to a brilliant idea and claim something (Jones, 1937b).




These letters show the cordial working relations between Jones and Sutherland. They became lifetime friends and corresponded and visited one another after Sutherland left the University of Chicago for Indiana University in 1935. Jones stayed in Sutherland's home at times and Sutherland took him to class to entertain and educate his students. Some people thought that in subsequent years Jones "hustled" or continued to "hustle" "The Doctor," as Sutherland was called affec- tionately by Jones. Their relationship seems much more substantial than this. It scarcely needs to be added that, contrary to mythology, Sutherland was capable of dissimulation, particularly with businesses, when he thought it necessary or expedient.

THE CLASS ORIGIN OF PROFESSIONAL THIEVES

Because The Professional Thief was not a biographical account, Sutherland mentioned very little about Jones' personal history. In the "Introduction" we were told only that Jones was from a well-to-dö Philadelphia family, lived in the underworld for about twenty years and died in 1933 (very shortly after the manuscript was completed). This information was also fictive; Sutherland attempted to provide a correct impression of Jones' background while altering the factual details. This was done, of course, to conceal Jones' identity and to protect him from possible legal and social repercussions. Actually, Jones was from Bos- ton, probably not from a financially comfortable family and he out- lived Sutherland. Because Jones was hesitant to discuss his background, it is doubtful that Sutherland ever knew very much more about him than the skeletal facts he chose to tell. If fact, Jones' reluctance to talk about himself made Sutherland suspect, all the more, that his background was distinguished:

The reluctance to tell anything about his early life makes one suspect that he comes from an important family and that he is unwill- ing to involve his family in his present difficulties. I have wondered whether he may not be in some way connected with the Harvard Law School (Sutherland, n.d.).

Jones was thought to have parental connections with Harvard because he said he was born and reared in Cambridge, near the Univer- sity, in an "excellent neighborhood." And in addition, Jones at times mentioned to other people that he had once attended Harvard. In the letter to the Social Science Research Committee, requesting funds for




the project, Sutherland wrote, "

'Broadway Jones' seems to be an edu- cated person. The social investigation made preliminary to his parole from Leavenworth reports that he was registered, before he began his career of crime, in Harvard" (Sutherland, 1932). In the same "social investigation" Sutherland was informed that while Jones may have "registered" at Harvard he did not attend the university:

During the fall of the year that he registered in Harvard, he became involved in the illegal sale of some tickets to the Harvard- Dartmouth football game. Supposedly undergraduates were allowed four tickets to the game. However, during this time he was seen in contact with an individual who was later arrested for scalping tickets, and it was eventually learned that these tickets were the ones that were issued to him. He was called for questioning on the matter, but instead of appearing went to Boston where he appealed to professional racketeers along the ticket scalping line for assistance. It appears that in this way he became acquainted and attached to a confidence gang, and from that time on has been more or less involved in this pasttime (Buehler, 1932).

The office of the Registrar at Harvard reports no record of Jones. Sutherland was also informed by the Leavenworth "social investi-

gation" that Jones' father had been occupied in "shipbuilding" and that, "later on he dabbled in real estate, and while not actually engaged as an operator, held considerable property." The report also stated that the Jones' "home was located in a good residential section, [and] was a modern house at the time." The parents were also said to have had a summer house in New Hampshire. This information supported the belief that Jones came from fairly comfortable circumstances.

The assumed family ties of Jones' led Sutherland to believe that professional thieves in general had their origin in the middle or upper classes. The notion of higher class origins was not an explicit interpretive principle contained in the book. However, Sutherland mentioned that many originated in "middle-class society" (1937c: 205). In the text Jones wrote that while amateur thieves usually came from the slums, professional thieves did not [Ibid. :21).

A number of criminologists have accepted the idea of elevated class origin of professional thieves and the idea has been passed on as a more or less verified principle in the field. Two respected scholars

(Clinard and Quinney, 1973:249), for instance, report: "Professional criminals tend to come from better economic backgrounds than do conventional and organized criminals."

According to Jones' birth certificate, his father was a "car driver;" he was probably either an electric or a horse-drawn trolly car operator (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1891:136). The Eleventh U.S.



THE CRIMINOLOGIST AND HIS CRIMINAL 1 1

Census tells us that about one- fifth of the street railways in Boston were electrified by 1890, a year before Jones' birth (U.S. Census Office, 1895:681). The "social investigation" states that Jones' parents married in Massachusetts, although I have not been able to find a record of this alleged fact. No death certificate for either parent can be found. The vital statistics records for Massachusetts in the latter part of the 19th century are reported to be quite good, which means either that Jones' parents were married and died out of state, or that Jones provided incorrect information. In addition, the Cambridge and Boston street directories for 1880 through 1920 provide no listing for Jones' father. Peter R. Knights in The Plain People of Boston , indicates that it was unlikely for persons of property to be excluded from the directories:

There was a distinct economic bias in directory inclusion. Persons who were assessed for real and personal property worth less than a total of $1000 were less likely to appear in the directory than were individuals taxed for more than a total of $1000. Above the level of $1000, coverage by directory was almost perfect.6

Moreover, no record of probate involving Jones' parents in either Middlesex or Suffolk County courts could be located.

These various sources tend to indicate then that Sutherland over- estimated the class-origin of the professional thief. While any one of these contrary findings alone may be inaccurate, in combination they cast doubt on the belief that Jones came from comfortable circumstances. Any effort to decide Jones' actual class would be speculative. The findings only suggest that his origin was apparently much lower than Sutherland was led to believe.

Finally, the research done in preparation for the report of the President's Commission made the following as one of its few more certain findings:

Sutherland's generalization cannot be confirmed by our evidence for today's professional criminals. Those professional criminals with whom we talked were as likely to have come from very poor beginnings as not, and maybe even a little more likely. In fact, the most striking thing to be gathered from our interview material is the complete lack of a single background pattern (Office of Law Enforcement Assistance, n.d.:48).

THE CLASSES OF CRIMINALS AND THE CRIMINAL CLASSES

Another source which undermines the notion of the higher-class origin of the professional thief is from another professional thief. Prior




to publication, Sutherland submitted the manuscript to four other professional thieves and two former detectives for their response and corroboration. Sutherland was very concerned about Jones' biases (honesty) which is the main reason the book was so heavily annotated by "all the available published literature regarding professional thieves."

Throughout The Professional Thief a stress was placed on the hierarchical organization among criminals- sex offenders were in the lower stratum while professional thieves were in the upper. Within this structure there was a further differentiation of thieves into "snatch-and- grab men," those who used crude methods, and professionals, those who used refined techniques. Jones, especially, repeatedly emphasized the caste system among thieves; the rigid distinction between amateurs and professionals. Jones seemed to be very status conscious. It was clear that the term professional was an "honorific" title accorded only to those sophisticated in the art. One confidence man, who reviewed the manuscript7 and who was apparently as bright and articulate as Jones, had this to say:

All the rackets he speaks of, all the information he gives, is common knowledge among 'small-time crooks.' At no place in the entire writing does he touch either upon the 'rackets' or the 'big-time' professional himself. In other words, although he most certainly is a professional thief within the definition of that term which he himself gives, he is by no means a member of the aristocracy of racketeers. He would, in my definition, definitely be classified as 'small time' (Anony- mous, n.d.).

Thus, while Jones was not called an amateur, he was ranked rather low in the hierarchy and by implication close to it. Sutherland asked Jones about this issue, to which Jones responded in his typically witty style: "I am thankful that I have never considered anyone a small-time thief. If he is a thief- he is a thief- small-time, big time, middle time, Eastern Standard or Rocky Mountain- it is all the same" (Jones, 1937a; Suther- land, 1937c:201). In the midst of his democratic enthusiasm Jones had apparently forgotten his former derogation of amateur thieves.

The same critic also thought that the class of a thief reflected his class of origin. Thus he suggested that the big-time racketeers originated in the middle or upper class, while the small-time thief, such as Jones, came from the lower class:

In the last paragraph, the author asserts that the class of crooks of whom he is speaking is recruited from the upper or middle classes of society. I entirely disagree with this statement. It is certainly true of the real big time racketeers, but it is my belief that the boosters and cannons originate in the slums (Anonymous, n.d.).




The critic was a professional thief who apparently did not come from the higher classes. Sutherland, with his own sample of one, had very little evidence to substantiate the idea that professional thieves arose from the higher classes. The system of stratification within "thieve- dom" was neglected, as was the hypothesis that only those at the pinnacle came from middle or upper class backgrounds.

Sutherland's inattention to these issues stems less from careless- ness than from his belief in the classless character of crime, a belief which was not clearly evident until the publication of White Collar Crime more than ten years later. In White Collar Crime he argued that the upper class was as criminell in the course of their business pursuits as the lower, and consequently, that crime was independent of class structure. Given Sutherland's distinction between the white collar crimes of the upper class, and the conventional crimes of the lower class, it does not necessarily follow that class and crime are unrelated. The avoidance of the relation between professional stealing and class structure in The Professional Thief is a reflection of the same position. This raises the question of the relationship between Sutherland's ideology and his theoretical interpretations, which is a subject for another paper.

JONES AND JUNK

Another issue virtually ignored in the text and interpretation of The Professional Thief was Jones' addiction to narcotics. The possible relationship between professional thievery and drug dependence was also ignored. The systematic stealing by the professionals described by Jones was apparently essential to purchase drugs. Sutherland knew very well that Jones had been a junkie. Jones' last incarceration, for instance, before his encounter with Sutherland, occurred when he was found guilty by a jury in the Northern District of Illinois, of a violation of the Harrison Narcotic Law (purchasing, dealing, selling) and the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act, and sentenced on May 23, 1929 to imprisonment for a term of five years in the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas and fined $400.00. Later, Jones with Suther- land's help, obtained a job as a intake receptionist in the shelters for homeless men in Chicago during the depression. In this capacity he was a major collaborator and advisor, based on his experience and knowledge, to Lindesmith in his early drug studies. Moreover, Sutherland once wrote:




On two or three occasions when it did not seem to me to be at all warm he was sweating profusely. Beads of sweat were standing on his brow. What is the relation of this, if any, to the drug habit? Has he not been off the drug, if his story is correct for a long enough time so that such sweating should not occur? (Sutherland, n.d.).

Jones was abstinent from drugs and not engaged in stealing during the collaboration period. Whether he returned to stealing is not known, but he did return to drugs (Sutherland corresponded with him and lent him money during Jones' voluntary stay in the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in the late 1940's). In addition, the professional thief who critiqued the manuscript had pointed out the strong connection between stealing and drugs:

Here the author describes [on page 144 of the original draft] the eccentricity and irritability of a certain booster whom he calls Myrtle. Undoubtedly she was a junkor and this is what caused the excitable actions. While on the other subject, I might add what he at no time states specifically: that at least 90% of boosters are drug addicts, and at least 75% of cannons are likewise addicts (Anonymous, n.d.; Suther- land, 1937c:40).

In an isolated note found among Sutherland's papers a response to the above statement was found:

A confidence man who was himself a drug addict states that 90 per cent of the shoplifters and 7 5 per cent of the pickpockets are drug addicts. There is no good means of determining how accurate this statement is, but it is probably not far wrong. Drug addiction is probably acquired after the person becomes a thief because other thieves are drug addicts, and has little significance as an explanation of the criminal behavior.

This interpretation is contradicted, however, by the chronology of events mentioned by Sutherland in the "Introduction" to The Profes- sional Thief:

In adolescence he was ushering in a theater, formed an attach- ment for a chorus girl, married her, began to use narcotic drugs occasionally in association with her, left home and became a pimp. In that occupation he became acquainted with thieves and through them learned to steal (Sutherland, 19 37c: vi).

The sequence indicates that the drug use occurred prior to the stealing. Whatever the time and causal sequence, the omission of the

information about narcotics and stealing was an important one. Since Sutherland was attempting to demonstrate the organized character and the stable interdependence of professional stealing with other institu-




tions, notably the police and the polity, it appears strange that narcotics importation and distribution was not placed in context.

A possible, but perhaps uncharitable, explanation for this omission might be the common theoretical association of drug dependence with psychological maladjustment. Sutherland's sociological interpretation would have been considerably weakened, or at least challenged, had he revealed to the reading audience that professional thieves were often "dope fiends," as they were known then, who shot-up with the drugs obtained from the money earned in their work. Sutherland was with this book also opposing the psychological school by attempting to picture thieves as mentally stable. Evading the drug issue was perhaps a way of supporting his sociological explanation and avoiding a psychological controversy.

CONCLUSION

In this investigation of the details of The Professional Thief I have tried to show that Sutherland did not adequately research the two issues of social origin and drug reliance with regard to the professional thief. I have also tried to disclose some of the personal and intellectual relationship between Jones and Sutherland. Their work represents a research style that has never been contagious to the rest of the criminological community. Most criminologists have cared little more than that the individuals were arrested . Unlike many of the ultra-positivists who served as his contemporaries, Sutherland did not equate and confuse criminals with aboriginies, cannibals, devils, beasts, impulsive infants, fascists, communists, hobgoblins in general, and other imprecatory possibilities. Sutherland was one "criminologist" who was at least intimately acquainted with a "criminal." One may then go on to question, however, how much this helped his theory.

FOOTNOTES

I. An exception to this is Howard S. Becker who cites them both, and Jones first, in the "Introduction," to Clifford R. Shaw (1966), The Jack-Roller: A Delinquent Boy's Own Story. This book is also known as "Shaw's book" even though it was a delinquent's autobiography.

2. The information contained in this paper has been collected from much travel and many persons and sources. It was collected in Santa Barbara, Phoenix, Bloomington, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C. I am particularly grateful to Mrs. Myrtle Sutherland, Mrs. Betty Sutherland Sand, Donald R. Cressey, Alfred R. Lindesmith, Henry McKay and Karl Schuessler. At one point or another the material was read and criticized by Virginia Duerr, Gilbert Geis, Robley Geis, Terry Kandal, Steven Spitzer, Austin Turk and Marvin E. Wolfgang.




3. I have written a brief sketch of Sutherland's life: The American Criminological Tradition: Portraits of the Men and Ideology in a Discipline. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1972, pp. 218-229.

4. A book concerning safecrackers, written in contradiction to Sutherland, suggests that a professional criminal career does not require association, does not necessarily begin in delinquency, can be self-taught, and does not require peer recognition. See Bruce Jackson (1969), A Thief's Primer, pp. 19-24.

5. Reitman's criminological research resulted in two publications: The Second Oldest Profession : A Study of the Prostitutes' Business Manager, 1931; and Sister of the Road : The Autobiography of Box-Car Bertha, as Told to Ben L. Reitman, 1937. The latter is the story of a female vagabond, recently made into a film, "Box-Car Bertha."

6. Mr. Peter R. Knights, through his knowledge of Boston and public documents, has helped greatly in the search for information about Jones' background. I cannot thank him enough.

7. The book review editor of the Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology was interested in having The Professional Thief reviewed by a professional thief. He unknowingly asked Jones, who declined. The editor succeeded in getting another "major thief" to review the book anonymously. Among many other harsh things this thief said the book ". . . seems to be the work of a small-time criminal. " Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology 38 (November-December 1937), pp. 624-625.

REFERENCES

Anderson, Neis 1923 The Hobo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Anonymous n.d. "Professional Thief #1." Unpublished.

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Becker, Howard S. 1966 "Introduction." The Jack-Roller: A Delinquent Boy's Own Story. Written by

Clifford R. Shaw. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Douglas. New York: Random House.

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Jones, Broadway 1937a Letter to Edwin H. Sutherland. January 7. 1937b Letter to Edwin H. Sutherland. June 27. 1937c Letter to Edwin H. Sutherland. October 16.

Knights, Peter R. 1971 The Plain People of Boston. New York: Oxford University Press.

Office of Law Enforcement Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice n.d. Project 045: Crime as a Profession. Washington, D.C.

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Reitman, Ben L. 1931 The Second Oldest Profession: A Study of the Prostitutes' Business Manager. New

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Sutherland, Edwin H. n.d. "Broadway Jones." Unpublished. 1932 Letter to Social Science Research Committee. October 24. 1937a Letter to Donald P. Bean, University of Chicago Press. June 26. 1 937b Letter to Broadway Jones. June 26. 1937c The Professional Thief. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1947 "Professional Theft as a Behavior System." Principles of Criminology. Fourth

edition. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1949 White Collar Crime. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

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by Land. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.



Edwin Sutherland and Broadway Jones: The Professional Thief

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