On Oct. 31, Fiona O’Connor walked into the Syracuse University Bookstore and dropped her backpack off in a cubby, just as she always did when she entered the bookstore. When she came back five minutes later, her backpack, which held her laptop, was gone.

“I went home and was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’” said O’Connor, a junior magazine journalism and English and textual studies major.

O’Connor is not the only Syracuse University student who has been a victim of campus thefts this year. A couple dozen thefts have occurred on campus so far, five of which took place in the Schine Student Center SU Bookstore, said Tony Callisto, chief of the Department of Public Safety. He said these numbers are very typical.

“The biggest challenge is places where people might leave their property unattended,” Callisto said, citing study areas and libraries as especially problematic.

Donald Maitland, director of security for the SU Bookstore, said the store recently began allowing students to carry backpacks with them throughout the store, but the policy change is not related to thefts.

Rather, he said, it was made in an effort to test how well allowing students to carry large bags throughout the store worked before the bookstore moves. The new location on University Avenue will not have any storage space for large bags.

The number of thefts in the bookstore this year has not been unusual and the policy change has not affected the number of thefts in the store, Maitland said.

DPS has increased property checks in academic buildings and libraries, and has also placed posters and table tents in study areas reminding students not to leave their possessions unattended, Callisto said.

He added that some arrests have recently been made in regard to campus thefts.

Despite warnings, Dan Eiding, a freshman entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises and finance major, said he has left his valuables unattended several times while in the E.S. Bird Library and has never had anything stolen.

“There’s always a lot of people around,” he said. “I feel like at Syracuse people are generally nice, and thefts are a rare occurrence.”

Callisto said he thinks students continue to leave their belongings unattended partially because of a false sense of security. Either they are used to leaving their possessions unattended at home without problems or they have done so without repercussions on campus, he said.

“It’s not that it’s automatically going to be stolen, so if people don’t experience it they don’t pay as much attention to it,” he said.

O’Connor said that since her backpack was stolen, she has become more aware of leaving her belongings. While she said that at the time she was not aware she could carry her backpack in the bookstore, she also noted that students ultimately need to take responsibility for their belongings.

“I should have put my backpack in a locker, but it’s like, from doing it so many other times, I was like, ‘Oh, it’ll be fine, I’m downstairs for five minutes,’” she said.

Callisto emphasized that ultimately, thefts are avoidable.

“These are preventable crimes,” he said. “Taking your backpack with you to go eat or go to the restroom is the best defense for being a victim of a larceny.”

 

Published on November 13, 2012 at 11:16 pm

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