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planning, technical skills, codes of behavior, high status, and an ability to avoid detection. Professional crime is a sociological rather than a legal entity. The argot (specialized jargon) of the professional criminal world uses Depression-era U.S. terms. Some examples include cannons (pickpockets), heels (sneak thieves), boosters (shoplifters), and the con (confidence games). A continuum model of professional crime presents crime as professional to the degree that it possesses the following characteristics: sole livelihood, extensive career, skill, high status, avoidance of detection, criminal subculture, planning, and “the fix.” The fix refers to the ability to avoid prosecution by compromising the criminal justice process. The term scam refers to various criminal techniques or hustles. Professional crime differs from occupational/corporate crime in that, in the former, crime is the sole purpose of a business. Some examples of professional crime from Edelhertz’s typology were presented, most of which are examples of fraud. Some professional crime might be described as semiprofessional in that it involves less skill and planning. Sometimes called bunko or flim flam or short con operations, these scams include the pigeon drop, the badger scam, the bank examiner’s scam, postal frauds, circus grifting, boojo (a gypsy con game), and various home-improvement frauds. The big con involves far more skill, more elaborate planning, higher- status victims, and much larger rewards for the criminal. Ponzi schemes are frauds in which early investors in a nonexistent product are paid high dividends on the basis of money obtained from later investors. Pyramid schemes require investors to seek a chain of other investors in order to reap a promised high return. Examples of big con operations also included religious cons. Various professional criminal trades were discussed in the chapter. These included boosters, cannons, professional burglars, box men, fences, paper hangers, robbers, arsonists, and auto thieves. Descriptions of careers of professional criminals are methodologically limited by the need to rely on case studies and popular sources for many accounts. Most professional criminals seek anonymity, know the police and members of organized crime, are very deliberate in plying their trade, and avoid conspicuous consumption. They avoid rough stuff and “heat” and attempt to minimize risks. Requiring skill and contact with others, most seek subcultural support as suggested in Sutherland’s “differential association” theory. The professionalization of criminal justice has appeared to reduce many of the previous opportunities available in professional crime. The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice pointed to the importance of two essential elements that explain the success of professional crime: “the fence” and “the fix.” The high cost of legal defense also may be responsible for a portion of the decline of such crime.

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