FRANK SCAFIDI, NATIONAL INSURANCE CRIME BUREAU (2014a)
Who or what is to blame for the theft and attempted theft of roughly 556,000 cars in 2013 (according to the NCVS [BJS, Truman and Langton, 2014]) or the approximately 700,000 vehicles reported as stolen that year (according to the UCR [FBI, 2014])?
As the statements above demonstrate, victim- blamers over the decades have been quick to scold negligent drivers for facilitating thefts by leaving their vehicles unlocked, or, even worse, for leaving keys dangling in the ignition lock. Car stealing seems to be the only crime for which there is an organized victim-blaming lobby, a peculiar situation that devel- oped long ago. Composed of representatives of auto- makers, insurance companies, and law enforcement agencies, this lobby has castigated motorist care- lessness since the dawn of the automobile age.
The problem of car-stealing is certainly not new—it emerged more than 100 years ago, at the dawn of the automobile age. As long ago as 1919, Congress passed the Dyer Act, which autho- rized the FBI to investigate organized theft rings that drove stolen vehicles across state borders to evade local police forces with limited jurisdictions. Then, as now, cars were taken for a number of reasons.
Professional thieves steal cars for profit. These career criminals don’t rely on driver negligence;
B O X 5.3 Advice from Experts About Burglary
What to Do to Safeguard a Residence: Following these tips can greatly reduce the chances of
being burglarized, police officials insist:
1. Never go out and leave a door or window open or unlocked.
2. Check the door and door frame to see if they are sturdy enough or need to be repaired or replaced. Have a licensed locksmith install a heavy duty dead bolt lock with a highly pick resistant cylinder.
3. Secure all windows properly by replacing the inadequate crescent locks that come as standard equipment. Air conditioners should be secured to the window sash so they can’t be pulled out or pushed in.
4. Illuminate the perimeter of the house, especially the door areas with enough light to see a silhouette. Install the floodlight fixture out of reach, in a tamperproof and weather resistant housing. Use timers throughout the house that turn lights in various rooms on and off on a varied schedule. Shrubbery should be trimmed or designed to provide maximum visibility and no oppor- tunities for concealment.
5. It pays to comparison shop for alarm systems. Get estimates from at least three established companies.
6. Make an inventory of all valuable items like jewelry and electronics, and take photos for insurance purposes. Make a list of their serial numbers and ask the local precinct for a tool to engrave each item with a unique number that can be traceable if it gets stolen and then recovered by a police department. Ask the precinct to send out a burglary prevention officer to conduct a confidential home security survey that will identify existing vulnerable points of entry.
What to Do If the Alarm Has Been Set Off or the Home Is Ransacked:
1. Call the police immediately to report the crime but do not enter the premises because the intruder might still be lurking inside. Secure the crime scene until detec- tives arrive to look for clues.
2. Notify the insurance company to begin the paperwork to file a claim for reimbursement.
SOURCE: NYPD, 2014.
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they know how to start a car without a key. It takes them just a few minutes with the right tools to disarm alarm systems and defeat standard security hardware such as door, ignition, and steering wheel locks. If necessary, they can tow away a vehi- cle on a flatbed truck and defeat its security system at their leisure (Hazelbaker, 2011). Working in lea- gue with commercial theft rings, these pros steal cars either to sell or to strip for parts. Steal-to-sell (retagging) operations alter the registration and title documents and vehicle identification number, and then pass off the car as used. Steal-to-strip opera- tions (chop shops) dismantle vehicles and sell the sheet metal crash replacement parts (such as the hood, trunk lid, fenders, and doors) as if they came from legitimate salvage and recycling pipe- lines to auto body repair shops.
Another motive for stealing a vehicle is to use it for temporary or short-term travel, often as a get- away car after committing some other crime, such as a bank robbery.
Joyriders take cars for a spin just for fun. Juve- nile joyriding (which the law calls “unauthorized use of a motor vehicle” and treats as a delinquent act) has been a craze among teenage boys ever since cars were marketed with the message that owning one is a sign of manhood and a basis for indepen- dence. These amateurs—who seek the status, thrills, and challenge of “borrowing” cars to impress their friends—often prey upon careless motorists who leave their keys handy.
Evidence of poor habits is not hard to find, according to a survey of drivers sponsored by the insurance industry in 2007. About 20 percent of all respondents admitted that they did not always lock their vehicles. Seven percent sometimes left spare keys in their vehicle. One-third conceded that they have left their car unattended while it was running (RMIIA, 2011). To counter this mindset of being lax about taking security seriously, edu- cational campaigns advise motorists to follow a number of tips to safeguard their vehicles (see Box 5.4).
The actual contribution of victim facilitation to auto theft usually has been measured as the percentage of recovered stolen cars in which
there was evidence that the thieves had used the owners’ keys. Although this methodology has its limitations, surveys based on it reveal a trend that casts doubt on the continued relevance of negli- gence as an important factor. Data from insurance company records from the 1940s through the 1960s indicate that between 40 percent and 90 percent of all thefts were facilitated by motor- ists’ carelessness. During the 1970s, police, FBI, and insurance industry records showed that facili- tation was a factor in 13 percent to 20 percent of all thefts (Karmen, 1979; National Institute of Justice, 1984). In the early 1990s, an insurance industry publication reported that only 13 percent of all vehicle thefts were still victim facilitated (National Insurance Crime Bureau, 1993). But law enforcement agencies as well as insurance and security companies still emphasize that out- breaks of negligence leading to crimes of oppor- tunity remain a significant problem. The Austin, Texas, police department (2011) estimated that nearly 20 percent of all stolen vehicles were taken using the keys left in them. A 2008 study of vehicle stealing in Texas determined that keys were used in about 50 percent of all thefts. A 2009 study of thefts in Arizona concluded that 20 percent of the vehicles had been taken using keys. A Baltimore study determined that a stun- ning 85 percent had been driven off using keys left inside the cars in 2010 (Egan, 2011).
However, it is likely that most of the recovered vehicles in these studies were taken impulsively by juvenile joyriders who later abandoned them. Vehicles stolen by professionals who dismantled them or else resold them intact are rarely recovered and therefore cannot be examined for evidence of victim facilitation. Furthermore, some of the cars stolen by using keys might not have been victim- facilitated thefts—the keys were bought, not left behind by negligent owners. “Jigglers”—thin pieces of metal shaped like keys—are sold over the Internet in sets as “master keys” that can open most locks, for legitimate purposes—such as by locksmiths and auto repossessors (Gardiner, 2010).
The available statistics support the following conclusion: At one time, when the public was less
TH E O N GO IN G C ON T RO VE RSY O VE R S HARE D RE S P ON S IB I L I T Y 147
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conscious about crime, facilitation may have con- tributed substantially to joyriding escapades. But teenage amateurs are no longer responsible for most car thefts. Professionals—often working for commercial rings that may be affiliated with orga- nized crime syndicates—now represent the greater threat. As the years roll by, key facilitation is declin- ing in significance as a reason for losing a car to thieves.
Facilitating a car theft by leaving keys behind in the ignition could in rare instances lead to a civil judgment against a victim if the thief injures some- one else. Some states now require that a car be locked whenever a motorist leaves it (see Sweet, 2011). Some insurance companies have exclusion clauses in their policies that threaten loss of cover- age and a denial of reimbursement if the owner acts recklessly or even negligently and leaves keys dangling in unattended vehicles.
The clash in outlooks between victim blam- ing and victim defending is an example of a half- empty/half-full debate. Victim blaming focuses on the proportion of motorists who have bad habits. Victim defending emphasizes that the
overwhelming majority of people whose cars were stolen did nothing wrong. These drivers don’t have self-defeating attitudes and didn’t act carelessly. According to victim defenders, the image of the absentminded owner that is frequently conjured up by victim-blaming argu- ments is an outmoded stereotype that no longer fits (Karmen, 1980).
Owners of motorcycles that are stolen also can be subjected to victim-blaming. For example, the insurance industry warned them to follow theft- prevention tips with this slogan: “Be an easy rider—not an easy target!” (Scafidi 2006).
A similar debate surrounds the issue of who or what is to blame for the surge of identity thefts in the twenty-first century.