March 5, 1971

THE SCARLET AND BLACK '

Page 3

"Campus Crime Rate” Rises With Peily Thefts

by Mark Sablemun
Part II

A recent article in the
“Chronicle of Higher Educa-
tion,” a weekly publication
primarily for college anduni'
versity administrators, stated
that campus security budgets
at most colleges are rising
steadily, in spite of the cur-
rent tight- money situation whr
ich forces cutbacks in most
other areas.

Although this rising empha»
sis on security is partiallya
reaction to Student unrest and
campus disturbances, much
of it "is in response toa grow
ing rate of crime on many
campuses," the
said.

It is very difficult to mean
sure the "campus crime
rate," growth but there does
appear to be such growth in
the area of theft at Grinnell.
At least such an increase is
perceived by many people.

SHOPLIFTING

Shoplifting by college Slud’
ents at stores downtown ap-
pears to be increasing this
year over other years. Chief
of Police Bill Peters told the
ShB that there have been five
or six cases of shoplifting by
students this year, and this is
much more than in the past.
Now, Chief Peters said, they
file charges on every student
who is brought in; in the past,
when there were only a few
students caught shoplifting,
the police often gave them a
break.

Chief Peters pointed out that
the greater percenhage of
shoplifters are not caught, so
it is difficult to say what the
extent of the problem is. He
did say that it appears'to be

Chronicle

increasing, and many busir
nessmen are anxious to do
something about the problem
-- some of them, he said,
"would like to throw them all
(shoplifters) in jail."

Chief Peters said that shop-
lifting was ”a funny deal" to
him. "Why do they do it?" he
asked. “A lot of them have
the money in their pocket" to
pay for what they mke, Peters
said, and “There's no rhyme
or reason to it."

College VicevPresident for
Business Donald Lambie told
the ShB that a number oftown
businessmen have been com"
plaining to him about increas
sed shoplifting. One tow'n bur
sinessman was in to see him
two weeks ago and said he
would rathernothavcthe busi*
ness of students he suspects
of shoplifting rather than try
to catch them and turn them
in to the police.

Lambie said that the manar
gers of about five or siXStores
downtown have recently ap*

proached him when he went in ,

their stores and complained
about theft by students. He
believes that this indicates
the problem has IEached a
level where some merchants
downtown are making geners
alizations about all Grinnell
college students on the basis
of the theft that only a few
are responsible for.

Virgil Groth, coiowner of
McNally‘s Food Store, told
the S&B that McNally's is put-
ting in mirrors so that they
can keep an eye on shoppers
as a result of the increased
shoplifting problem. He said
that, to his knowledge, theft
by college students in his Store
is not any greater than that of
town kids or other groups. He
estimates McNally’s yearly
losses from shoplifting in the

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Because of the change in the
book store management and
the expansion in space this
year, it is difficult to tell how
much theft there has been at
the book store this year or
what the change from past
years is. ManagerTom McBee
told the S&B that he believes
much of the theft in pastyears
may have been due to dissatisr
faction with the management;
by running the book store to
serve the students, he hopes to
yin the confidence of stu-
dents.

Last year’s accounting ofthe
book store showed only a one
per cent profit ($1,400)before
overhead costs were taken into
consideration; itis reasonable
then to assume that the book-
store has been operating at a
loss, and this loss can be at
tributed to theft.

McBee said thattheftatbook-
stores has been increasing
quite a bit recently through—
out the nation; the Harvard
Co-op had such embarras-
singly low profits last year
that they were forced to go in
debt to pay their members
their annual rebates, for fear
of the reaction if their mem-
bers received only a one per
cent rebate.

PETTY THEFT

Petty theft of cashand equip?
ment from the dormitories
and academic buildings usuals
1y becomes a bigger problem
at this time of the year than
before, College Business Mar
nager Ralph Pomerenk said.
Recently, there have been tI'r
efts of wallets from the locker
rooms in Darby and the swim-
ming pool, and losses of cash
from dormitory rooms has
been-increasing. A w'éek'a'go,
Physical Education Professor
John Pfitsch's wallet contain-
ing several college credit
cards, was stolen from the
swimming pool locker room
while he was teaching a class.

Pomerenk urges students to
take precautions against theft,
since theft from Student rooms
usually increases at this time
of year. He asks students to
lock their rooms, and report
any thefts to the Deans ofSruA
dents.

Much of the theft problem in
this area, Pomerenk pointed
out, may be due to only one or
two people e- in a smallc0m*
munity such as Grinnell, it
doesn't take much to start a
"crime wave". Greg Vranis
car, Student Coordinator, of-
fered much the sameadvice - -
it is very easy for justa few
people to steak things atGrin-
nail, and students should take
precautions against and look
out for such people.

There are always a number
of visitors and transients ar-
ound campus, and students she
ould try to watch for them,
and find out who they are,
Vranicar said. The problem
with outsiders is that there is

no real sanction that the col*
legs or other students have
over them to make them obey
our procedures. Neither the
Grinnell police nor the B&G
watchmen are prepared or in-
clined to act as real security
guards for the campus; there-
fore, everyone must be care-
ful if we are to control theft.

Dean of Students Conney
Kimbo told the S&B that it
would be helpful if students
would report thefts from their
rooms tohall officers, tomake
them aware of the problem,
and to the police, for insurance
purposes if for no other rear
son.

Theft of college property frs
om the aoademicbuildings ap-

, pears to be mostly occasional

rather than regular. There
have been a few microscopes
reported missing from the
Science Building, and some
microphones from the Fine
Arts Building, but there ap-
pears to be no regular or
systematic theft from the aca-
demic buildings.

Theft or destruction ofvend-
ing machines has beenaprob‘
lem in the past. The Pepsi
machines that were on campus
last yearwere so heavily dam~
aged that Pepsi wouldnot sup*
ply vending machines this
year. However, there have
been no problems with at
tempts at theft or destruction
with the new Coke machines,
possibly because the way they
are made, it would be very
hard to steal from them.

However, a cigarette mach-
ine in Younker Hall was com-
pletely torn apart and emptied
of cigrettes and coins sev-
eral weeks ago. Approxir
mately $350 and 140 packs of
cigarettes were taken. The
operator of the machine has
removed it, and has no inten-
tion of replacing it for now.

THE LIBRARY

The library committee and
the librarians have been try-
ing to determine the extent of
theft from Burling library by
checking a random sample of
books on the shelves in dif’
ferent subject areas. Bycom»
paring yearly changes in this
sample, they hope to be able
to see the extent of the theft
problems so they can judge
what should be done.

Last summer was the first
time this spot checkwasmade,
and the last complete shelf
check was about nine years
ago, so it is difficult to tell
what the results mean. HOW’
ever, there was an average of
3% loss shown in last sums
mer's audit. In a library of
200,000 volumes, this reprer
sents a loss of six thousand
volumes at an original approx
imate cost of $60,000.

If the annual rate ofloss from
the library were even only
[hréertenths of a per cent,
then the lees would still rep
resent 600 volumes or $6,000,
approximately one-fifth of the

 

 

 

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library’s annual budget. Fur-
Lhermore, many of the lib-
rary's losses are extremely
hard to replace, since they
are old volumes out of print.

Professor Philip Kintner,
chairman of the faculty lib-
rary committee, told the 5&8
that there are a number o_f_
explanations for the losses. A
number of students, he said,
try to put a book on a sort of
"private reserve" by hiding
it in the shelves, putting it at
a different place than where
it belongs.

Many students apparently
take books out of the library
without checking them outwith
the full intention of ramming
them when they are finished;
however, as Kintner pointed
out, then there is no due date
and no real compulsion for the
student to take the book back.

Student Coordinator Greg
Vranicar said that library
procedures for checking out
books have been made espec-
ially easy and liberal so that
books will be checked out. If
books are not checked out, it
is impossible for the librar-
ians or Other students who
want the books to locate them.

Kintner said that the library
committee has considered a
number of procedures for
stopping theft from the lib-
rary, from expensive and
complicated electronic devi-
ces to setting up a checkout
by the door as students leave.
checkouts, he said, are stan-
dard procedure in most col-
lege libraries, but Grinnell
will wait to see if the cost of
having one would be less than
the cost of replacing stolen
books.

CHECKS

Theft'of money from forger‘“,
ies of signatures on lost or
stolen checks has become a
problem in Grinnell recently.
In three or four cases, stud-
ents have lost blank checks
and others, apparently stud~
ents, have tried to dish them
around town forging the signa-
tures.

College Treasurer Lambie
has been working on these'
cases, and he found the stud‘
ent who was forging signatures
in one case. However, no char-
ges were brought against the
student, Lambie said. Lambie
is now working on the other
cases, even though the college
is nOt directly involved thr-
ough a money loss. He hopes,
however, to solve these cases

, so that town businesses will

not stop cashing checks for
students as a result of the
possibility of forgeries.

Overall, it appears the theft
problem on campus and in
town has been increasing for
the past few years. Most of it
takes the form of theft by
students and others from Saga,
the bookstore, the library,and
dormitory rooms. Student Co-
ordinator Greg Vranicar, told
the 5&8 that he is "a firm
advocate of eliminating theft
on campus", suggested that
most of these problems can
be solved only if students
themselves recognize that the
whole community loses by
theft, and try to watch out and
stop those who do steal.

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