One Year in a Life of Crime (1989)

Their job is stealing, their lives a cruel dead end. Director Jon Alpert takes his cameras undercover for this hard-hitting look at men who live by theft and suffer addiction. Focusing on a year in the lives of three professional criminals, this gritty profile—which includes hidden-camera footage of actual thefts—exposes the “petty” crimes that are paralyzing America.

• cocaine
• domestic abuse
• new jersey
• newark
• shoplifter
• shoplifting
• spouse abuse
• uneducated