According to Hoyt's model, socioeconomic status varies both between sectors that radiate from the city center and between zones within sectors, with status rising as distance from the city center increases. In this study, sectors are defined along the major arterial roads leading to the center of Madras. Zones are marked off by a series of circles concentric to the city center at an interval of 2 kilometers radius. Data on reported theft and house burglary during 1984 are from the First Information Report of various police stations in Madras City. The study shows that different parts of Madras City characterized by various physical and social structures are exploited for different types of crimes. Theft and house burglary do not have the same spatial structure. Theft shows both sectoral and zonal structures, but house burglary does not show any structure. 4 tables, 8 references.