Car Theft Rise Vexes Police : Officers Blame 42% Spurt on Big Profits, Little Risks

A burgeoning market for stolen car parts coupled with low risks for thieves has made auto theft the fastest-growing property crime in the San Fernando Valley, authorities say.

As many as 51 cars a day--42% more than just two years ago--disappear from Valley streets, parking lots or driveways, Los Angeles police records show.

They are taken by joy-riding juveniles, professional theft rings or car strippers looking to turn stereos, tires and other parts into cash.

Police say nine out of 10 times the stolen cars are recovered but not before they have been partly damaged or stripped and their owners inconvenienced by having to fend for themselves in a city where personal transportation is a cornerstone of life.

“Auto theft is a multimillion-dollar business,” says Police Lt. Greg Vasquez, head of the burglary-auto division’s commercial auto theft squad, or so-called BAD CATs.

“It is a low-risk, high-profit crime,” he says. “It is viewed as a victimless crime because supposedly everybody has insurance, and nobody gets hurt. I say it is anything but a victimless crime. Everybody who pays an insurance premium is a victim.”

While the sheer number of vehicle thefts in the Valley--9,108 in the first six months of this year--puts the area on a par with other parts of the city, authorities are concerned because the incidence of the crime here is escalating much faster than in other areas. Auto thefts rose 17% during the first half of the year in the Valley, while they dropped 2% throughout the city.

Task Force Formed

In response, police have formed a Valley task force to crack down on the problem, in addition to the normal enforcement by patrol officers, divisional detective squads and the citywide BAD CAT squad, which targets professional theft rings.

In the meantime, police say there are numerous answers to who is stealing the cars and why it is happening so often.

For the most part, authorities focus on two key reasons when explaining why: the growing marketplace for the car thief’s loot and the small risk involved in terms of capture and jail time.

“We have an industry for used car parts that has burgeoned,” says Deputy Chief Ronald A. Frankle, supervisor of police operations in the Valley. “The cost of parts and car repairs have increased. It is no longer uncommon for a body repairmen to ask customers if they can put used parts on your vehicle. This has created a tremendous market for auto theft.”

And that market, police say, is right here in the Valley. Police say the hundreds of repair shops and 200-plus salvage, dismantling and junkyard businesses in the Valley attract car thieves like magnets.

Though joy riders and professional car thieves make up part of the theft problem, cars are most often stolen in the Valley to be stripped of parts, often sold through seemingly legitimate auto businesses that buy parts from thieves, police say.

The strippers range from drug addicts looking to turn quickly removable parts into drug money to expert thieves who go out looking for specific cars with specific parts.

“Without a doubt, wrecking yards and these kinds of businesses breed commercial auto-theft enterprises,” Vasquez says. “The thieves learn what are popular or hard-to-get parts that they know they can turn over for an easy profit. They steal whatever is selling, whatever they can move quickly.”

Police say the main goal of the new auto-theft task force in the Valley is to identify the receivers, or businesses that buy stolen parts from the thieves, and break down the system by which the parts are funneled through auto shops to cars.

“The thieves can’t effectively sell parts on their own,” Frankle says. “There has to be a way to introduce them back to commercial operations. One mission of the task force is to dry up the sources of receivers of stolen property.”

An example of how much parts-stripping accounts for auto theft is indicated by the 16 stolen cars recovered by police in the West Valley Division on Wednesday and Thursday last week. Police say 12 of the cars had been stripped, ranging from just stereos or tires taken to almost every removable part being taken and only a shell being left behind. Only four cars were recovered undamaged.

Major Reason

“We feel stripping is the major reason behind our auto thefts,” says Detective Robert Johansen, who supervises the West Valley auto theft squad.

Police noted that the stealing of cars for parts is most prevalent in the foreign-car market, where parts are more expensive than American-made parts and often are hard to get on a timely basis.

The result has been that foreign cars, particularly Japanese models, are stolen more frequently than American-made models. The Police Department list of the most-stolen vehicles in Los Angeles during June starts with Toyota’s MR2 and is followed by 24 other foreign models before an American-made car, an Oldsmobile Cutlass, makes the list. The top eight most stolen pickup trucks are also foreign models.

Authorities say that what helps fuel this system of illegal supply and demand is the second part of the problem, the criminal justice system.

Arrest Figures

According to police records, while 90% of the cars stolen in the city are eventually recovered, far fewer than half of the cases result in arrests. In the Valley, there were 15,912 cars reported stolen last year. Police statistics show there were 1,912 auto-theft arrests made in the area during the same period.

Police say the statistics can be misleading because often people arrested with stolen cars are charged with other crimes, such as receiving stolen property. The statistics also don’t account for arrests of people suspected of multiple thefts.

Nevertheless, police say those who are arrested for auto theft routinely face little time in jail anyway.

Authorities say this is largely because auto theft is an “alternate sentence” crime, a “wobbler” in prosecutorial parlance, meaning it can be filed against a suspect as either a misdemeanor or a felony. It also means that even if filed as a felony, a judge can still use the guidelines for a misdemeanor when sentencing after a conviction.

Misdemeanor Charges

Though no statistics were available, police say that roughly 75% to 90% of the auto-theft arrests result in the filing of a misdemeanor charge, which is punishable by a maximum sentence of a year in county jail.

Martin Vranicar Jr., a deputy city attorney who supervises the Valley district, says that in practice this often results in even shorter sentences, including probation for most first-time offenders.

“The sentences range from time in custody, to probation, to a fine, to longer jail time,” he says.

Whether to charge a suspect with felony or misdemeanor auto theft is decided largely on whether it can be proved that the suspect intended to permanently deprive the owner of the car, officials say.

Detectives say that proof, usually the repainting of the car or switching of the car’s identification number, is hard to come by in most cases.

Current Situation

“So under the way it works now,” says Sgt. Bob Carter of the Police Department’s research unit, an estimated “90% of the cases don’t get felony attention. There is very little risk in going to prison for these people.”

Vasquez says: “We have created a system where there is no incentive for the auto thief to stop.”

Authorities say the leniency given auto theft is partly a product of an overtaxed justice system with a glut of crimes and limited space to house prisoners.

“We have been inundated with crimes and prosecutions,” Frankle says. “Prosecutors have to prioritize, and the crime of auto theft has received a lower priority.

“A judge should not have to think like a hotel reservation clerk and know how crowded a county jail is or a state prison is. But in our society today, the judges have to worry about that. That is not good justice.”

Changes Expected

Frankle and others think that the way auto theft is treated in the criminal justice system may change as the problem continues to escalate and affects a broader range of society.

The Police Department has already recommended to the City Council that the city support legislation to increase penalties for auto theft. And on Aug. 3 a California Assembly committee is scheduled to hear a bill proposed by Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) that calls for stiffer penalties for repeat auto-theft offenders.

But perhaps more important, authorities say, is that if auto thefts continue to rise, so too will the anger and frustrations of victims, so too will insurance rates, and so too will calls for reform.

The burglary of an inhabited dwelling is an automatic felony, Frankle points out. Taking someone’s car in a automobile-reliant society such as Los Angeles could conceivably draw the same result someday, he says.

“We have to re-look at how we deal with these people” who steal cars, Frankle says. “One of the most terrible things you can do to somebody in the work force is to take their work tools. In Los Angeles, you take somebody’s car and you take their most important work tool. You quickly handicap them.”

When it happens to enough people, he says, “It is going to have to get attention.”

RISING AUTO THEFTS IN THE VALLEY 1986: 6,411 1987: 7,747 (+21%) 1988: 9,108 (+17%) MATT MOODY / Los Angeles Times