Crib Job begins with a disoriented elderly man wandering the streets in a run down neighborhood and encountering a group of thugs. Later the man is found dead with bruising on his hands, and Quincy (Jack Klugman) is called to the crime scene to examine the body and gather evidence. Lt. Monahan (Garry Walberg) arrests a teenager who an eyewitness identifies as being in a scuffle with the victim earlier, but the young man maintains his innocence despite forensic evidence that he and the victim fought. To further complicate matters, the teenage suspect is part of a community program run by football star Rosie Greer and the negative publicity stemming from the arrest puts funding for the program in jeopardy. Quincy must work quickly to determine how exactly the victim died in hopes of exonerating the teenage suspect and saving the beloved community program.
While there is an element of mystery to this episode, it really focuses more heavily on the social issue aspect of bringing old and young low income residents together so they can learn from and understand each other in a more productive and peaceful coexistence. The community center scenes are very well-intentioned and Pollyanna-like, but I just kept thinking to myself where on God's green earth would this ever happen?? Another thing I found ridiculous was that the victim was supposed to be an 80 year old man when the actor playing him appears to be in his late 50s or early 60s at most. To make sure I wasn't way off or suddenly in need of glasses, I looked up the birth year for the actor (Boyd Morgan) here and it is 1915 which would have made him a little over age 60 around the time this was filmed. This is another example of a quality issue in a Quincy episode which could have been easily addressed/fixed with a simple script change (just say he was age 65 or something close to that range) but wasn't.
The resolution is very predictable and Quincy gives an impassioned speech towards the end about saving the program and not withholding funding over politics and hype, but it is not powerful enough to make this a good Season 3 episode.