| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 犯罪學研究所 === 99 === Used-car plays an important role in Taiwan’s auto industry. However, few previous auto-theft studies emphasizes on used-car. Thus, the aim of this study is to identity the differences between new-car and used-car theft from the respect of target selection and stolen car market.
Both qualitative and quantitative methods are utilized in this study. Official auto theft records from 1999 to 2009 were first retrieved from the Criminal Investigation Bureau to calculate theft rates and recovery rates. The relationships between stolen rate, recovering rate, vehicle age, car manufacturing year and car brands were then analyzed. After that, based on Rational Choice Theory, an in-depth interview with auto thieves (both professional and amateur) was conducted to get insight into criminal motivation, criminal plan, target selection, stolen car market and the deterrence effect of previous anti-theft policies.
On the whole, the relationship between theft rate and vehicle age forms an M-shaped curve, with the theft rate for new cars aged 2~3 years and used-cars over certain years at the two peaks. For new cars, higher values in the stolen car market leads to higher criminal motivation due to better award for crime. For used cars, less owner alertness and lower car security level make it a preference for joyriding thieves and transportation-purpose thieves. Meanwhile, for the purpose of stripping down and reassembling, the stolen car market requires targets belonging to specific brand and manufacturing year. As a result, the theft rate for used-car is highly related to its manufacturing year.
When brand is taking into account, we found that the trend for theft of cars varies tremendously from brand to brand. For Toyota, new cars’ theft rate overwhelms that of used-cars, while used-cars are more likely to be stolen for Mitsubishi, Nissan and Ford. In the case of Honda and Mazda, the markets’ demand for specific year and car model serve as the main factor for theft.
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