Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 28, 1978)
The Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon, Thursday, September 28, 1978 THIRTEEN Oregon businesses try to slow rising tide of shoplifting Salem Scene By Jack Zimmerman An exclusive to Oregon's weekly newspapers People concerned about cri me that costs Oregonians $75 million each year gathered in Portland recently to study the situation. The gathering was unique because it involved victims of this particular crime, police charged with apprehending perpetrators, prosecutors, judges and those attempting prevention through rehabilita tion. The crime is shoplifting, most often classified as petty thievery. But there's nothing petty about its magnitude. Nationwide it costs mer chants $6.5 billion and it's a crime that has increased a staggering 35 per cent in the last five years. It has burgeon ed to the point merchants now figure one of every ten persons entering their stores do so with the intent to steal. The recent Portland meet ing was conceived and con ducted by the Oregon Retail Council and the office of the Multnomah County District Attorney. For fives years the Retail Council has been sup porting a statewide campaign to slow the rising tide of shoplifting through public ed ucation. The on-going cam paign is called STEM, an acronym for Shoplifters Take Everybody's Money. The Portland meeting was a frank attempt to enlist law enforcement agencies involv ed in arrest, prosecution, sentencing and rehabiliting a growing number of petty thieves. Attending the day-long af fair were city and county police officials, district and circuit court judges, represen tatives of juvenile court, probation services and youth community service centers. They exchanged information with the district attorney's office and representatives of large and small retail busi nesses, detailing problems each has in combatting what is largely considered a legal misdemeanor in Oregon. Technically, most shoplift ing consists of stealing mer chandise valued at less than $200. The law calls such crimes theft-two, theft in the second degree a class-A mis demeanor punishable by fines of up to $1,000 and imprison ment for not longer than a year. From a practical stand point, few shoplifters pay fines or go to prison at least not those convicted under the theft-two statute. Seventy-five percent are amateurs, half the amateurs are teenagers and 65 per cent of all teenage amateur shoplifters are fe male. . Of 447 shoplifting cases convicted in Multnomah Cou nty between Sept. 1977 and March 1978 (a 95 per cent conviction rate), 67 spent time in jail, often with added probation, restitution or fines. Ninety per cent received probation, frequently with added conditions largely community service. Retailers at the meeting expressed concern at the relatively small number of convicted shoplifters who rec eive harsh sentences. Judges explained their need to main tain neutrality in search of justice and, staggering case loads that prevent a higher level of personel attention. Multnomah County district court dockets involve as many as 150 cases a day, for instance, and one fourth involve theft-two ninety per cent dealing with shoplifting. They discussed formation of a shoplifting court, uniformity of sentencing and diversion- PRlClESFEaiVE IN PENDLETON AND HERMISTON SEPTEER 23 THRU OCTOBER 2. " Hormel Short Ordets HAV0LINE L-Vm ODUuO pi Jthz "ot"""l N Small portions that are just right hftt? BCe" : J for you! Everyone loves chili on a j K2fr&ts I 1 hri;k fall Hav Trw enmol I I Your Choice! Hormel Havoline I L r Ounce I I I I OE AILS 1 1 R fm Of. Cans I I Your choice of Scalloped Potatoes I 43C f li For with Ham or Beans and Wieners. I Each V- uy & 7 i OIL Reg 1 $2.69 p rt I Reg. II $1.57 (i New! 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Portland pol ice cited as many as 500,000 calls for help in a single year, when the force is physically geared to handle less than half that number. They also urged merchants to prosecute once arrests are made, explaining that arrests without action are useless from their point of view. Prosecutors made a strong case for greater Understand ing of the law on the parts of retail merchants and suggest ed on-going education part icularly among small business people to increase the con viction rate following arrests. Representatives of larger retail firms discussed the expanding costs of doing business in the process of providing professional secur ity personnel and equipment. A major Portland department store budgets in excess of a million dollars annually for security and another half-mil-lion in related expenditures. Smaller merchants deplored a trend among their peers to accept shoplifting losses be grudgingly rather than spend the time involved in active prosecution. Those employing only small workforces said they simply could not permit employees to spend hours or days in court to convict a thief accused of stealing an item that sells for less than the cost of prosecu tion. After throughly airing their individual problems, partici pants came to some tentative conclusions they are willing to pursue in the future! Diver sionary sentences, when fac ilities are available, was one. A shoplifting school, similar to those conducted for persons convicted for traffice offenses and alcohol abuse, was ano ther. One judge said he could guarantee an ample student body if such a school was organized. Generally, a better under standing of problems con fronting all participants evolv ed and the group agreed to continue its efforts to produce a community approach in combatting shoplifting. Impetus for this activity may be provided by shoplifing victims who were only inci dently represented at the meeting. They are the million or so wage-earning Oregon ians, who pay up to $75 a year more for the goods they buy just to cover the costs of what petty thieves steal. BMCCband tryouts will start tonight Rehearsals for the Blue Mountain Community College college-community band and orchestra start Thursday, Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. John Weddle, instrumental music director at BMCC.will hold the first rehearsal in the music building located in the McCrae Activity Center. The band and orchestra groups are open to all wind, string and percussion players in Umatilla and Morrow counties, both students and adults. Weddle noted, "Every body who plays an instrument from junior high age to senior citizen has participated in the past." The music groups meet once a week and anyone may appear and participate. There is no fee charged and students enrolled at the college get credit for playing. Dec. 3 has been set as the first concert date of the groups. For futher informa tion, contact John Weddle at the college 276-1260, ext 306 or at home 276-8621. )
