There is a group of offenders who are unusually persistent in robbery, even after serving lengthy prison terms. Three lines of inquiry clarify their motivations. First, the practical situational demands of robbery militate against an election of the offense as the outcome of a rational process of cost-benefit calculations. Appreciation of interactions between the conduct of robbery offenders and victims clarifies the inherent openness of the offender's situational desires. Second, the persistent offender's commitment to robbery is an aspect of the open-ended, interlocking character of the deviant social environment in which he operates. Third, persistent robbers have a distinguishing attraction to the use of violence; their attraction to robbery reflects a fascination with imposing transcendent control on a range of chaotic circumstances. Once research interests shift from generic "robbery" to the characterization of the persistent offender, ethnographic materials and ethnomethodological inquiries become essential.