1999 Annual Report

Larceny

Larceny is the unlawful taking, carrying, leading, or riding away of property from the possession of another. It includes crimes such as shoplifting, pocket-picking, thefts from motor vehicles, thefts of auto parts and accessories, horse thefts, and bicycle thefts, in which no use of force, violence, fraud, or trespass occurs. In the Uniform Crime Reporting Program, this crime category does not include embezzlement, “con” games, forgery, and worthless checks. Motor vehicle theft is also excluded from this category, as it is a separate crime index offense.

 Larceny is the most commonly reported Part I crime, accounting for 65% of the Part I crime total. However, it is probably also one of the most underreported crimes. Many victims of larceny—especially if the dollar amount is low—simply don’t bother to call the police when a theft occurs. In addition, a high portion of shoplifting incidents are not seen and are thus not reported.

Larceny is the only property crime to show higher totals at the end of the 20^th century than it did 30 years ago, and it was one of only two crimes to increase in 1999.

Within the next decade, we can probably expect larceny to continue to increase and to produce the most patterns. Certain items of property—cellular telephones, laptop computers, and other electronics—will drive the larceny rate. These items—easy to steal, easy to conceal, and easy to sell—provide attractive targets for thieves looking for profit without the danger and potential legal penalties inherent in robbery and burglary.

Larceny is broken into nine sub-categories, five of which reported increases in 1999. Most notable are the increases in larcenies from buildings and larcenies from motor vehicles, which together make up 31% of the serious crime total.

Larcenies from buildings are non-burglary thefts from commercial establishments. “Non-burglary” means that either the offender had a specific right to be on the premises, or that the building was open to the general public, and that no force was used to gain entry to the building where the theft was committed.

Larcenies from buildings promise to be a major crime concern in the next few years, as businesses in the area of Kendall Square continue to report thefts of laptop computers at an alarming rate.

Larcenies from buildings are further sub-divided into 15 categories:

About 70% of the larcenies of company property from offices involve the theft of laptop computers. We expect that laptops will continue to be one of the hottest theft targets over the next decade.

Thefts of personal property from offices most often involves the larceny of a wallet or purse from the victim’s desk.

A high percentage—at least two-thirds and possibly as high as 80%—of all thefts from buildings can be attributed to employees, security guards, or cleaning staff—in other words, people who have access to the area from which the item was stolen. The remainder are the work of thieves who sneak into the building during opening, closing, or lunch hours—often posing as delivery personnel.

There are few trends among the other larceny categories: most are crimes of opportunity; not crimes that a thief deliberately sets out to commit. One exception is larcenies from health club lockers, which is a continual problem at four establishments in the city. Both locked and unlocked lockers are entered and burglarized for watches, wallets, jewelry, and other property while the owner works out.

Geographic Breakdown of Larcenies from Buildings

In 1999, unexpectedly, Central Square took the lead in larcenies from buildings. Eight of them were health club larcenies, committed at the YMCA. One office building in the 600 block of Massachusetts Avenue reported 13 thefts of laptop and desktop computers and other equipment during the year; building staff was suspected. Almost a dozen thefts from schools—including four at the Maynard School on Windsor Street—plus a number of thefts from Cambridgeport bars and from store counters in Central Square round out the total.

Most of the laptop theft action occurs in the Galleria and Kendall Square districts, where technology firms report thefts at an alarming rate. Again, most of these thefts are attributed to security, cleaning, maintenance or other staff who have full access to the building; many occur overnight or on weekends. Buildings on Main Street, Rogers Street, Memorial Drive, and Cambridge Center have been hit multiple times each.

Harvard Square shows the fourth highest number of thefts, including 10 from the back rooms of various retail establishments, quite a few “forgotten” items from ATMs and restrooms, and a number of laptop computer thefts at buildings in the 100 block of Mount Auburn Street.

Larcenies from Motor Vehicles involve an offender either breaking into a car and stealing valuables within or stealing an exterior accessory (such as tires and hubcaps) from an automobile. It is the second most commonly reported crime in Cambridge.

After falling for several years, larcenies from motor vehicles are again on the increase. Being relatively quick and simple to commit, and yet potentially very rewarding, larceny from a motor vehicle is a favorite crime for the unskilled sector of the criminal workforce. It is committed frequently by homeless and juvenile offenders, often in sprees of five or six incidents a night.

The most popular targets are, in order, car stereos and CD players, cellular telephones, wallets and cash, CDs and tapes, and laptop computers; all easily fenced items.

bout 80 percent of larcenies from motor vehicles are accomplished by breaking into the car—usually by smashing a window or by prying the door lock.

In 1999, East Cambridge was the neighborhood with the highest number of larcenies from motor vehicles. Summertime patterns scourged commercial parking lots in the lower half of the neighborhood during the day, leaving car windows smashed and stereos and CD players stolen. Arrests of neighborhood youths in August helped abate the pattern, but parking lots and garages on Broadway, Third Street, and Linsky Way remained hot spots all year. Nine of the 115 thefts in East Cambridge occurred at the CambridgeSide Galleria parking garage.

Geographic Breakdown of Larcenies from Motor Vehicles

Cambridgeport and Mid-Cambridge came in second in 1999, with most thefts occurring in residential areas on the street. A handful of residential parking garages on Harvard Street in Mid-Cambridge reported a high percentage of the thefts. Many of the Cambridgeport thefts are committed by homeless individuals staying in the area. The proximity of second-hand CD and tape stores in Central Square make these hot targets in the Cambridgeport area. Most incidents occur over night.

Area 4 comes in fourth, with hot spots in lots on Bishop Allen Drive during the night.

Most increased was the Agassiz neighborhood, which jumped from nine incidents in 1998 to 44 in 1999. An August pattern that hit Crescent Street is responsible for six of the incidents, but larcenies were high all year. CDs and cellular telephones were the favorite targets. Streets most affected were Crescent Street, Francis Avenue, Garfield Street, Newport Road, and Oxford Street.

The Cambridge Police Department arrested 33 people—30 men and three women—for larcenies from motor vehicles in 1999. Ages ranged from 15 to 44. The average age of those arrested was 28. Six were juveniles; 15 were over the age of 30.

Seven of those arrested were homeless; 10 were from Cambridge (six from Inman/Harrington, one from Cambridgeport, one from Strawberry Hill, one from East Cambridge, and one from Area 4); seven from Boston; two from Somerville, two from Lawrence, and one each from Arlington, Belmont, Brookline, Mansfield, and Medford.

Top Larceny from Motor Vehicle Hot Spots

·          Cambridge Center, commercial parking garage (East Cambridge): 11 incidents

·          CambridgeSide Galleria Garage (East Cambridge): 9 incidents

·          Fresh Pond Mall parking lot (Cambridge Highlands): 9 incidents

·          727 Memorial Drive (MicroCenter/Trader Joe’s) parking lot (Cambridgeport): 8 incidents

·          Third Street & Broadway, commercial parking lot (East Cambridge): 8 incidents

·          195 Binney Street, residential parking garage (East Cambridge): 7 incidents

·          295 Harvard Street, residential parking garage: 5 incidents

For the fifth consecutive year, larcenies of bicycles declined in Cambridge. Hopefully, this trend will continue. Between 1989 and 1994, bicycle theft exhibited a sharp ascent, soaring from an average of 270 per year in the 1980s to 575 in 1993. The recent declines reflect, perhaps, the increased publicity given to this crime, the greater availability of bicycle racks, and a crime-prevention conscious public. (The Cambridge Police Department’s bicycle theft statistics do not include thefts reported on MIT or Harvard University property. These additional thefts could add several hundred to the total.)

With the recent decreases came a couple of interesting shifts in the character of the crime:

1.       In 1996, about 70% of stolen bicycles were stolen from the street—from meters, signs, and bike racks, locked or unlocked. The other 30% were stolen from residential areas such as back yards, front porches, apartment building basements, and garages. In 1997, this ratio changed to about 50% “street” thefts and 50% “residential” thefts. Finally, in 1998 and 1999, it was inverted from 1996, with about 60% occurring from residential areas. In other words, bicycle theft is moving away from an unprotected, street environment to protected, residential areas where the bicycles’ owners believe the bicycles to be safe.

2.       The traditional summertime peak has been blunted, but is still fairly prominent. Between 60 and 75 percent of all bicycle thefts occur between May and September.

3.       The usual clusters in Harvard Square, Porter Square, and Central Square nearly evaporated in 1998 and 1999. In the early to mid-1990s, Harvard Square had the highest concentration in the city, with 70-100 thefts over any given summer. Instead of plaguing the commercial squares, bicycle theft clusters moved to the residential areas of Mid-Cambridge and the Peabody and Agassiz neighborhoods.

Geographic Breakdown of Bicycle Theft