Evidence of Rational Criminals

As gas prices rise, it seems like every news source I see is talking about increases in drive offs from gas stations and stolen gas. This sounds like reasonably strong evidence of rational criminals: As the price of gas rises, people are substituting from "gasoline" to "stolen gasoline." Given the number of gallons sold, number of customers, number of gallons stolen, and number of thieves at each price per gallon, you could probably estimate a cross price elasticity for stolen gas relative to purchased gas. Prepay and pay-at-the-pump stations might be confounding factors. Hmmm, it might also be interesting to see see if the relative price of gas compared to other stations is more important than the absolute price of gas in determining how much is stolen. And does everyone who steals gas fill up completely (or steal more gas on average than paying customers buy)?

From that, you could also estimate the marginal criminal's estimate of the expected cost of stealing gas. Add in the fine for stealing gas and the likelihood of getting caught, you should be able to estimate how risk loving the marginal criminal is.

I'd love to get my hands on some numbers.