‘Hot Products’: Why stolen goods are CRAVED

Jewellery, alcohol, sportswear, and medicines are just a few of the items favoured by ram raiders and shoplifters. There are specific reasons why offenders target these socalled ‘hot products’, writes Nicholas Dynon.

Nicholas Dynon is chief editor of NZSM, and a widely published commentator on New Zealand’s defence, national security and private security sectors. Ronald Clarke’s seminal paper Hot products: Understanding, anticipating, and reducing demand for stolen goods, was published in 1999 by the UK Home Office as part of a Police Research Series. Over two decades on, and as many countries – including New Zealand – grapple with cost of living crises and a ballooning of ram raids, retail theft, and property crime, Clarke’s paper is as relevant as ever.

What makes it such an important work is that it introduced the idea that crimes don’t just tend to predominate (or repeat) in particular places (crime ‘hotspots’) or in relation to particular people (repeat victimisation), but that they often tend to focus on particular items (‘hot products’).

‘Hot spots’, which is a geographic concept, refers to locations that have a high rate of reported crimes or calls for police assistance. It’s a concept that’s been helpful, states Clarke, in identifying places with concentrations of ‘street crime’, disorder and drug dealing. “Repeat victimisation, on the other hand, focuses on people or places that suffer a series of crimes in a relatively short period of time.”

‘Hot products’ is the term Clarke gives to those consumer items that are most attractive to thieves. They are one of a number of ‘choice structuring properties’ that affect offender calculations of the ease, risks and rewards of committing particular kinds of crimes. The rewards of crime are heavily dependent on the careful choice of targets

In other words, some products are more likely to be targeted by offenders than others because they are easier or less risky to steal, or their value or attractiveness makes them a more rewarding target. To describe what makes hot products hot, Clarke came up with the acronym CRAVED:

Concealable These are things that are small enough to quickly hide or those that may be taken without attracting attention. Those that cannot be concealed afterwards, or that are easy to identify later are also less likely to be stolen,” states Clarke.

This attribute helps “explain why car thieves do not generally steal Rolls Royce cars for their own use. Leaving them parked outside their homes would attract too much unwelcome attention.”

Removable Removable items are things that are easy to carry or are themselves mobile. “For instance, shoplifters are severely constrained in the number of bottles of whisky or packets of cigarettes they can steal without being noticed, but a ‘commercial burglar’ operating after hours may be able remove many cartons of alcohol and tobacco.”

Available Availability refers to things that are more likely to be abundant and

accessible in one way or another. It also explains why thefts of items can often occur in ‘waves’. According to Clarke, the introduction of attractive new products, such as mobile phones or laptop computers, quickly establish product-specific illegal markets.

At the most basic level, availability can also simply refer to how visible an object is at the point of theft.

Valuable This refers to items that are valuable, particularly when thieves intend to sell them. “For example, one reason that cars that are around five years old are more at risk of theft is because the value of their parts is greater than that of the whole stolen vehicle,” states Clarke. Value is also reflected in the tendency of Juvenile thieves to select goods that are valued in the youth culture, whose ownership confers status.

Enjoyable These are things that are enjoyable as opposed to things that are more functional (e.g., refrigerators). The fact that ‘enjoyable’ items are more attractive to thieves than ‘functional’ items “may reflect the pleasure-loving lifestyle of many thieves and the people who buy from them.”

Disposable Disposable items are things that are easy to trade, sell for cash, or that can be used immediately without risk. Since many items are stolen to be sold to others, thieves will tend to select things that will be easy to sell. Which goods are CRAVED? According to the US Department of Justice guide Understanding Theft of ‘Hot Products’ (Bowers and Johnson), items that have more CRAVED characteristics are more likely to be stolen.

According to the authors of the guide, this is primarily because these items are “optimal targets for offenders who want to minimise the time and effort required to commit crime (e.g., the availability/accessibility and removability of items), and minimise risk of negative consequences (i.e., concealability), while maximising the benefits of any given offense (e.g., value, enjoyment and disposability of items).”

When Clarke wrote his report in 1999, the consumable goods commonly targeted for theft included alcohol, tobacco, food items, personal care products such as razors and shampoo, medicines, fuel, batteries, and entertainment media (DVDs, etc).

Clarke also cited a study of losses for three categories of merchandise—food; health and beauty products; and beers, wines, and spirits—at three large U.K. supermarkets, which revealed that in the case of food, fresh meat is far more likely to go missing (particularly beef and chicken), and milk and strawberries are at a high risk of shrinkage when compared to drinks or sandwiches.

“For alcohol, spirits go missing with a higher frequency than wine and liqueur, and overwhelmingly it is name-brand products that go missing,” he writes.

“For health and beauty products, commonly stolen items include pain relief, baby products, cosmetics, face creams, oral health products, and perfume. What was most telling was thieves’ preference for particular brands, and even within brands, particular products.”

Two decades later, the top categories identified in the 2022 edition of the US National Retail Federation’s Retail Security Survey as being targeted by Organised Retail Crime offenders closely aligns with Clarke’s findings. These categories included apparel, health and beauty, electronics/ appliances, accessories, food and beverage, footwear, home furnishings and housewares, home improvement, eyewear, office supplies, infant care, and toys.

“Still CRAVED, but perhaps with some difficulties to overcome are bicycles (which can be difficult to conceal but, once taken are highly removable); disposable razors (which are more functional than enjoyable, and not particularly valuable, although they are expensive for a disposable product); and larger household goods, such as televisions, microwaves, and desktop computers (which are harder to conceal and remove),” states the survey report.

According to Clarke, offender decisions around what items to target ultimately come down to how easily they can be sold or traded on. “While each of the elements of CRAVED may be important in explaining which products are stolen, how much they are stolen may depend critically on just one attribute — the ease of disposal.”