The FBI traditionally managed its investigative resources on the basis of caseload and accomplishments, giving equal weight to all crimes within its jurisdiction. In 1975, realizing the limitations of this method, the FBI implemented a 'quality over quantity' concept in case workload to eliminate marginal investigations on matters not warranting Federal attention. Offenses that could be investigated equally well by Federal or local authorities were to be left to local law enforcement agencies. To determine the success of this concept in application to the FBI's general property crimes program, researchers reviewed 467 interstate property crime cases randomly sampled from investigations completed in fiscal year 1978 by 6 FBI field offices in Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Miami, Newark, N.J., and New York. The workload of these offices represented about 20 percent of the FBI's total property crime caseload for fiscal year 1978. The study found that the FBI is not accomplishing its goal. Of the approximately $30.3 million that the agency spent to investigate property crimes in fiscal year 1978, about $21.3 million were spent to investigate nonquality cases. In addition, most property crime investigations were unproductive. Only 7 percent of the cases were prosecuted, about half of the cases did not involve a Federal violation, and only about 14 percent of the cases resulted in any recovery of property. The FBI's impact on property crime would be more effective if the FBI used its existing resources to neutralize major interstate property crime, if it revised its quality standards for property caseloads, and if better coordination were developed between Federal and local authorities. Case data and footnotes are given. (Author abstract modified.)