Ah, another excellent article by Jeffrey's friend.
Excellent insight indeed.
I'm not trying to be contrary, but it's my personal opinion that when you're part of a gang or organized crime, that in effect is still a "profession" of sorts.
However, I find his "drug perspective" fascinating, and as far as I know, remarkably accurate.
There is one more class of thieves that he didn't mention, and that is the (teenage) amateurs. I'm not a social worker, so I don't know exactly how or why. All I know is that a lot of burglaries (at least around here) are perpetrated by juvenile delinquents that are looking for anything they can haul off to a pawn shop.
However, dealing with this group really isn't any different than the what has already been presented, except I'll say that, anecdotally, they appear to be easier to deter than, say, drug addicts.