Rebels Without a Cause : Why do young people shoplift? Peer pressure. Cheap thrills. Trendy clothes.

Tricia remembers the first--and last--time she stole anything. When the 16-year-old walked into Montgomery Ward with a group of friends, she says her heart was pounding: “I thought I was going to get caught.”

She did.

“We had all walked in the store together,” she explains. “One of my friends had got a bag for everybody and we put the shirts in the bag. I was scared. We saw a security guard and dropped the stuff. Then some more security guards came in the door we were going to leave. . . . They handcuffed us and put us in the office.”

Guards took Tricia and her friends to the police station, where she was booked and later put on informal probation for six months.

“I was shocked,” her mother, Janet, says. “She didn’t have to do it, because she gets everything she wants.”

Tricia says she shoplifted mostly “ ‘cause my friends were doing it.”

Although store managers and security experts agree that shoplifters can be any age, initiation often begins in the teens, and sometimes among kids as young as 10 or 11. Psychologists say more girls shoplift than boys, but store owners and law enforcement officials say the numbers of those apprehended are about evenly split between the sexes.

Most youths steal because of peer pressure, the thrill of breaking rules or simply because they want something.

For others, the reasons are darker. Psychologists say the thrill and danger can provide a rush that temporarily relieves depression or fills unmet emotional needs.

And a few make the leap from prankster to professional, devising elaborate schemes and learning early the lucrative rewards of selling hot merchandise.

Clinical psychologist Edna Hermann divides teen shoplifters into two groups: normal teen-agers looking for excitement and kleptomaniacs.

For most youths, she says, shoplifting is an expression of normal teen rebellion and satisfies real material wants.

“It’s maybe part of the peer culture,” she says. “There is the rush of danger. Would they be caught? Wouldn’t they? There is also wanting something they need immediately. ‘If I have this lipstick, I will be beautiful for my date.’ At a home where the family is on a budget and there isn’t money for all the frills, this satisfies the need for beautiful things.”

Sometimes, though, shoplifters try to fill an empty space in their lives by pouring in pilfered items.

“Sometimes people steal to replace the emotional deprivation, the lack of love, lack of attention they feel at home,” Hermann says. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the value of what they steal. They are replenishing depleted emotional supplies for themselves.”

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Along with traditional traumas of adolescence--dates, grades and parents who just don’t understand--teen-agers today face life-threatening crises that generate a powerful need for escape, says clinical psychologist Michael Peck. And some use shoplifting as an anti-depressant, much as some people use drugs, he says.

“We see a lot of depression in young adolescents. Years ago, we thought teen-agers could not get depressed. It’s harder for a child to enter adolescence in the ‘80s and ‘90s than in the ‘50s and ‘60s. It’s more achievement-oriented (now). There’s more scary threats. Thirty, 40 years ago, we didn’t worry about drugs, didn’t worry about gang violence,” he says.

And the struggle to provide materially for their children may leave parents less time to help teen-agers through the terrors of growing up, Hermann adds.

“They could have all the money in the world and they’ll shoplift, just to get their parents’ attention, because they’re not giving them love,” says Suzy, 17, shopping for shoes at Eagle Rock Plaza.

On the other hand, parents who don’t heed their children’s need for independence may inadvertently encourage them to shoplift as well, says clinical psychologist Robert Rome, adding that youths who lack privacy at home may not respect private property of store owners.

“My two friends were, like, neurotic until they got caught,” Jovie Lopez, 19, says while snacking at the Westside Pavilion. “They were always shoplifting clothes. . . . One of them, she was an abused child. She used to run away all the time.

“The other one, her parents were divorced and she lived with her father, and he was a wacko man. He’d take her stuff and keep it. . . . They didn’t have any privacy, that’s true. And plus, they did need new clothes and they couldn’t afford any.”

The conflicting desires of teen-agers to establish their individuality and to fit in with the group find a focal point in fashion. Styles change by the season, month or week, and an urgent need for $100 running shoes or $50 jeans can keep kids racing on a treadmill to win acceptance.

“There are a lot of peer pressures that are quite outstanding,” says Rome, who treats some shoplifters. “Some girls I’m working with share clothes. They in effect share closets. It’s the role of each girl to keep those closets full. For girls whose families are on limited income, there is a great pressure to keep their wardrobes up and to supply the group. The girls who cannot keep up with the pressures of the group are under pressure to shoplift.”

Those who fall behind fashion trends meet with derision, says Katie Trinh, 16, browsing at Eagle Rock Plaza: “These days, kids are supposed to have an image. If you don’t wear the kind of clothes, or the makeup, they misjudge you, they think you’re stupid. . . . They think you’re poor and they don’t want to talk to you. If you dress house, with baggy pants, clothes that are in, they think you’re cool.”

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Those taunts can be hardest on children of immigrants, Trinh says. Struggling to adapt to American expectations, they may be ridiculed for wearing clothes traditional to their culture.

Trinh laughs and points out that her clothes, loose blue sweats and a black leotard, wouldn’t pass the cool test, but adds that for some kids, failure to heed the trends can be traumatic: “Most shoplifters used to dress a certain way and felt left out. They feel like they have to keep up with other kids. If they don’t have the money, they’ll shoplift.”

While some youths race to follow the dictates of fashion, others shoplift to capitalize on them.

“They shoplift and bring it to school and sell it,” says Edward Roy Flowers Jr., 16. “If shoes cost $100, they sell them for $45 to $60, depending on the brand. They go to different places, three times a week. . . . They know it’s wrong, but they do it because they need the money, they want the money. A boy on my block does it. He’s about 11.”

Stolen compact discs--small, light, with high resale value--can also be profitable.

“It’s big business,” says Sheri Lunn, manager of the Wherehouse at the Glendale Galleria. “We have people called boosters. They’re professional shoplifters who do it for a living. They’ll get 15 of the same thing. They can be in and out in anywhere between 15 to 30 seconds.

And Marla Fuller, manager of Records West in Westside Pavilion, says some of those pros are still in high school: “The 15-year-olds and older seem to be the professionals.”

Leif Lauritzen, executive director of the Stores Protective Assn., puts annual losses from shoplifting at $2 billion to $4 billion nationwide. And stores pass that on to customers. Five to eight cents of every dollar spent in stores is related to shoplifting losses, he says, and ends up costing a family of four about $500 yearly.

Stores respond by stepping up surveillance and installing high-tech monitors to catch thieves. And the tug of war between shoplifters and store security escalates with each advance.

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The most sophisticated thieves, says Anjeanette McDonald, store manager of Walden Kids in Westside Pavilion, don’t bother with petty items.

“Nowadays, shoplifters are pretty hard to catch because they’re really good,” she says. “The worst shoplifting case is not really (stealing merchandise). It’s more the scams that go around. Having a credit slip. Duplicating a receipt. For us, we’re such a big company, people can steal high-priced items and then return them and get what they really want.”

Here too the pros are sometimes kids who make a game of devising ingenious ways to beat the system. And often, the thieves are employees.

“My friends do shoplift,” says Romik Nazarian, 18, perusing the Glendale Galleria. “Like Nintendos and stuff. . . . Let’s say someone works in the stockroom of a store. They’ll stick some stuff in a garbage bag like they’re taking out garbage. They’ll throw it out back and a friend will pick it up. Just ‘cause it’s free. Why spend money if you can get it for free? They’ll get a stolen credit card, find a friend and go on a crazy shopping spree.”

Offers another 18-year-old: “Or people leave them, and if you work there you just pick them up. And then you sign the back so that they can verify that it’s your signature. I know somebody who works at a toy store. So they take things from where they work and return them at Toys R Us. Then they’ll get store credit and buy their Nintendo.”

Still, for most teen-agers, shoplifting is an impulse that lasts until they realize the results of their actions.

“I used to shoplift a lot,” admits Chris Nm, 20. “Things are so expensive, you think about it: ‘I could just jack this, steal it right now and if they don’t see it, I can get away with it.’ ”

When he got caught stealing CDs, “They called my mom and she came, and that’s why I stopped. It’s not worth it. She wasn’t mad or upset. She was just shocked.

“I think it’s part of growing up. You get into all this trouble. You’re not mature enough to think of the consequences.”

Tricia’s brush with the law also was a lesson, her mother says. Since then, “She brought her grades up and everything. Yeah, it woke her up. . . . She just made a mistake. But she knows now that’s not the right thing to do.”