Crime at Christmas: It’s Growing : Holiday Rush Makes It Easier for Shoplifters, Fraud Artists

At the Mall of Orange, telltale signs of Christmas are in the air.

A car crashed into the mall’s Radio Shack last week after the store closed. Thieves emerged from the car and loaded it with video-cassette recorders.

An electrician working in the mall parking lot left his car for about 10 seconds, and it disappeared.

And in the incident that really has the mall abuzz, a young man walked into the Pet Pantry last week, grabbed three iguanas from an aquarium and ran from the store with security guards chasing him. Clutching the foot-long lizards, the young man sprinted through the Broadway and lost his pursuers in the crowded parking lot.

“He just said they were his and started running,” Pet Pantry assistant manager Cindy Wigginton recalled, shaking her head.

One of the iguanas, which sell for $69.99 each, already had been sold to a customer as an intended Christmas present. The iguana’s name was Jim.

Jim and his two reptilian companions were never recovered, and the pet store is trying to replace them.

Other stores, too, are trying to cope with losses from the annual onslaught of Christmastime crime.

“The sheer level of shopping activity that ranges from chaos to bedlam . . . is a shield or cover for people interested in crime,” said Roger Griffin, vice president of Commercial Service Systems in Van Nuys, a retail crime consulting firm.

The most common offenses, particularly in malls, are shoplifting, car break-ins and check fraud. Purse snatches are a problem, although not nearly as widespread, Griffin said.

An analysis by the governor’s Office of Criminal Justice Planning found that in 1985 and ‘86, December was the worst month for shoplifting, a crime that costs Californians about $13 million a year. In 1985, the months of December and January also led the year for robberies, according to the analysis, and only August and September posted higher robbery totals last year.

It is still too early to tell what this season’s crime wave will bring in terms of losses. But there are indications that the holiday criminals are busy.

At the City Shopping Center in Orange, private security officers for J.C. Penney Co. arrested a person last week for using phony receipts to obtain refunds on store merchandise he had not purchased. Store officials would not comment on what kind of merchandise was involved. A list was confiscated from the suspect that gave directions on how to shoplift general merchandise.

At South Coast Plaza mall--Southern California’s largest shopping center as measured by revenues--a security officer at a department store said it had been hit by a “terrible increase” in bad checks this season.

And at the Brea Mall, general manager James Charter said he has alerted managers of all 120 mall stores that someone is passing counterfeit $20 and $50 bills.

Police departments and retail security officials routinely add staff to try to combat the annual holiday crime wave. Orange County’s major malls all report increased uniformed police patrols and surveillance, with some even doubling their security staffs.

This season, Westminster Mall added mounted patrols who watch for thieves casing cars for the packages in back seats.

The police and security officers say they look for people behaving suspiciously--a “shopper,” for instance, who lingers too long around a certain store counter.

At the J.C. Penney store in the City shopping center last week, an undercover security officer followed two teen-agers who aroused suspicion by looking over their shoulders at frequent intervals. The youths also seemed too interested in every item they passed, according to an undercover police officer who accompanied the security officer. Most legitimate shoppers, the undercover officer explained, have an idea about what they want before they enter the store and go directly to the appropriate department.

In this particular case, the teen-agers who were under surveillance apparently left the store without any shoplifted merchandise.

Police said many of the criminals who prey upon stores and shoppers are addicts who steal year-round to support their drug habits. Added to their ranks at Christmastime are people who steal simply because it is easier, as well as people who shoplift Christmas gifts they otherwise could not afford, police and security officials say.

A prime target, they say, are cars where people have left gifts in plain view.

“If people would just learn to lock their gifts in the trunk, crooks would not break in,” said Michael Baumgardner, security director at the Mall of Orange.

The security chief at a major department store in Orange, who asked not to be identified, said her store loses about $1,000 a day from shoplifting at this time of year. Traffic volume in the store doubles, she said, and with store employees overwhelmed by work, “it’s real easy to steal.”

“Ninety-eight percent of the customers are honest. Two percent are not,” she said.

“The answer to the problem is probably what they do in the diamond mines of South Africa, where they make you strip, walk through a shower area, put on a jump suit and then reverse the procedure on the way out,” said Leif Lauritzen, executive director of the Stores Protective Assn. in Los Angeles.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think you’d have many customers left. And that’s the problem: People don’t want to be hassled. The stores have to maintain a pleasant environment for people to shop in. So there is an invisible battle zone.”

But within that invisible zone, stores are fighting back.

Inside the malls, security officers are posing as shoppers. Television surveillance cameras, strategically located mirrors and security guards watching through one-way mirrors in fitting rooms all monitor the crowds, Lauritzen said.

Police departments are also making their presence known, not only in terms of undercover surveillance, but in highly visible uniformed patrols. The Costa Mesa Police Department, for example, deploys three uniformed officers to patrol the long corridors of South Coast Plaza mall this time of year. Marked police cars also patrol outside.

“Our policy is to try and be visible,” said Sgt. Dick de Francisco, who attributes the police presence to an apparent reduction in holiday crime at the mall this year. “Overall, (crime) activity is down a good 40% from last year.”

Bob Battani, director of customer services for South Coast Plaza, said the mall’s security statistics also show a decrease in crime. But the figures do not include shoplifting in the major department stores.

Statistics do not portray a true picture of the holiday crime problem, said Griffin of the Commercial Services Systems. He said most shoplifters--who account for the vast bulk of holiday crime--are released by the stores without calls to police.

Although many retail establishments post signs saying they prosecute shoplifters, few in practice press charges against everyone, Griffin said. One reason is that it costs money to prosecute an offender, he said.

Another is that after recovering the shoplifted merchandise, it may be difficult to prove that the person had the intent of stealing it, Griffin said. He or she may claim forgetfulness in purchasing it, he said.

“It is not against the law to walk out of a store without paying for something (unless) the person had intent to steal,” Griffin said.

And most shoplifting goes undetected, Griffin added.

Some police departments estimate that only one out of every 10 shoplifters are caught.

That means that retail stores, despite their heavy security precautions, remain vulnerable to holiday crime and continue absorbing losses, which are passed on to the customer in the form of higher prices, said Lauritzen of Stores Protective Assn. He estimates that the higher prices charged by retailers to make up for the shoplifting costs the average American family of four $200 to $500 a year.

Lauritzen said the holiday crime problem worsens each year and that “the No. 1 policeman--a person’s conscience--is not there as much anymore.”

“One of the most astonishing things is, you stop somebody and they say, ‘I’m not a thief,’ ” Lauritzen said. “They seem to think it’s a deep-pocket type of thing; that it’s OK to steal from the store because they (believe that the stores) are already charging too much.”

AVOIDING CRIME WHILE SHOPPING

The Office of Criminal Justice Planning offers these safety suggestions:

Always lock your car and close the windows. Lock packages in the trunk.

Teach your children to go to a store clerk and ask for help if you become separated while shopping.

Avoid carrying large amounts of cash. Pay with a check or credit card.

Notify issuers immediately if your credit card is lost, stolen or misused.

Be extra careful with purses and wallets in crowded shopping areas, at bus stops and on buses.

Avoid overloading yourself with packages.