It was barely enough time for Joanne Pokrajac to buy a small gift.
But the 20 minutes the Schaumburg woman spent inside Woodfield Mall, away from her 1991 Chevrolet Astro Van, was all the time a car thief needed to do his own shopping.
”When I first walked out, I thought I was looking at the wrong parking spot,” said Pokrajac, 39. ”Then it hit me: Someone had stolen my car. Right then and there I felt violated. And then I became very angry.
”Police should make it a priority to stop stuff like this.”
Pokrajac is hardly alone in that opinion. More than 75,000 cars will be stolen in Illinois this year, most of them from drivers in Chicago and its suburbs. Many of those cars will never be recovered. And those that are recovered often will be automotive carcasses, stripped of radios, hubcaps and even body panels.
It isn`t teenage joy riders stealing cars anymore.
Instead, experts say, the field has been taken over by sophisticated theft rings that pilfer cars from the driveways of homes in Northbrook, the parking lots of malls in Schaumburg and the streets of Chicago. And each year, the number of thefts goes up.
Now, with $6 million in state funds heading their way, many police departments are joining resources and personnel to combat the problem. The funding, for example, is helping to establish task forces against car theft in northwest Cook, Lake, Kane, Du Page and Will Counties. And it is being used to enhance a program already in place in Chicago.
In addition, it will provide police officers with special training and create programs to educate car owners on what they can do to protect themselves.
But even the most optimistic law-enforcement officials concede that such efforts, although successful wherever they`ve been implemented, will have only a limited impact on what has become an $8 billion-a-year industry nationwide. ”Officers are going to have their work cut out for them,” said State Police Maj. Charles Doerr, chairman of the Illinois Anti-Car Theft Committee. ”This is big business and it has a lot of different fronts.”
In 1990, the last year for which statistics are available, 74,473 cars were stolen in Illinois. Nearly 90 percent of those thefts occurred in Chicago or the suburbs. The statewide number has increased significantly every year since 1987, when there were 62,661 such crimes.
As a state, Illinois ranked 5th in the nation for auto theft in 1990. It trailed California, with 302,214 thefts; New York, 187,591; Texas, 154,415;
and Florida, 106,902. Wyoming had the fewest, with only 676 thefts.
When population is taken into account, Illinois fared a little better. The state ranked 13th in the nation with 643 thefts per 100,000 residents. New York led the way with 1,043 per 100,000.
Car thieves today are a far different breed than the teenage joy riders who once stole most cars. They are, for example, willing to travel long distances to steal a car; they also are much bolder, breaking into garages, working their craft in daytime hours, and even stealing at street corners by ordering drivers out of their cars at gunpoint.
Perhaps the most common characteristic of the modern auto thief, according to Patricia Ethridge, former president of the International Association of Automobile Theft Investigators, is an affiliation to large, lucrative criminal rings.
The clientele of these rings include ”chop shops,” overseas exporters, unscrupulous auto parts suppliers, as well as car owners, who officials say have commonly begun turning to professional car thieves to defraud insurance companies.
”The problem has so many levels and so many players it`s scary,” said Arnie Schlossberg, president and chief executive officer of the Palos Hills-based National Insurance Crime Bureau. ”You really begin to wonder if it can be stopped.”
Chicago`s suburbs, authorities say, are particularly ripe for car thieves. The region has a car-intensive lifestyle, parking lot-laden malls and an easily accessible web of expressways.
”All they have to do is get in the car,” said Schaumburg Lt. Edward Pope, whose department is serving as headquarters for the new northwest suburban task force. ”Once they get (the car) started it`s all over. All they have to do is get on the expressways, which are right there.”
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And if location and convenience weren`t enough enticement, authorities say careless car owners provide more.
A recent study by the Illinois Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Council found that 40 percent of local motorists don`t take the time to lock valuables in trunks.
Twenty percent of all auto thefts occur, Schlossberg said, when keys are left in the ignition.
Automobile insurance premiums have been forced up between 10 percent and 30 percent on a average insurance policy of $1,000 because of car theft, according to Schlossberg. ”This is not a victimless crime,” he said.
”Everybody pays, especially the consumer.”
Pokrajac, the Schaumburg woman, said she has learned this lesson all too well.
As a result of the theft of their van, Pokrajac and her husband have paid two insurance policy deductibles, expect their insurance coverage to skyrocket and have still not been able to buy a replacement vehicle.
”People are treating us like we did something wrong,” said Pokrajac, who said she will never feel safe leaving her car alone again. ”I`m being victimized more than once here. It`s just not right.”
The Illinois anti-car theft effort will try to target all of these factors, largely by altering the conventional approach to the crime, which focused mainly on reactive measures, according to officials.
A prime example of the change is the training of officers who will be part of numerous regional anti-theft task forces. Before the task forces become operational, officers will undergo three weeks of special training, including classroom instruction in current auto theft practices, and become proficient in new surveilance and field-work techniques, according to Pope.
Once commissioned, the officers will meet at least once a month to share, compare and compile information and profiles on area car thieves, he said.
Officials did not want to disclose any of their tactics for fear of alerting thieves. But they did say they would employ groups of officers who patrol specific areas in search of car thieves, trying to establish patterns and actively pursue the arrest of the thieves while in the act.
The technique is similar to one used by the Chicago Police Department`s anti-crime theft office, according to its leader, Cmdr. Jacqueline Murray. The unit has three teams of at least five officers who patrol various parts of the city looking exclusively for car theft, she said.
The Illinois program will also try to publish and distribute materials to educate car owners on how to best avoid having their automobiles stolen, according to Sue McKenna, a member of the Anti-Car Theft Committee.
For example, McKenna said, motorists should park their cars in well-lighted areas, not leave valuables exposed and use an anti-theft device, such as an alarm whenever possible. ”It is imperative we get the message out to people of what kind of serious problem this is,” she said.
”We don`t think they understand the severity.”
The Illinois effort-funded by $1 from each insurance policy purchased in the state-is patterned after a similar trendsetting program in Michigan, which has shown promising results.
Under Michigan`s plan, 92 police officers and seven prosecutors are devoted exclusively to the state`s 67,000 yearly auto thefts. Since the program`s inception in 1986, Michigan`s ranking for its auto theft rate dropped from third to seventh, according to John Thompson of the Wayne County prosecutor`s office.