Repeat offenders
more of a problem

Police say many arrestees for
burglaries are on probation or parole

By Linda Aragon
Star-Bulletin

A 69-year-old woman visiting from California stepped onto the lanai of her Waikiki hotel room.

A well-dressed man, who hotel employees assumed was a tourist, slipped through the room's open door and rummaged through the woman's suitcase before running off with her purse, said Dan Bayne of the Hawaiian Waikiki Beach Hotel.

Police charged 37-year-old Ray McCoy, of Pacific Palisades, with first-degree burglary. McCoy, who was already on parole, was a familiar face to police, having been arrested 50 times, police said.

Repeat offenders or career criminals have been a chronic part of an increasing number of burglaries this year, especially on the Windward side.

"We've noticed that when we're catching people for the burglaries, they're on either probation or parole," said Lt. Michael Correa of the Kailua theft division.

Last month, the Windward district had the most reported break-ins among Oahu's eight police districts.

The area, extending from Makapuu Point to Crawford Convalescent Home, had 147 break-ins.

Correa said the Windward district has enlisted help from volunteer community policing teams, who watch out for the neighborhoods and offer tips to prevent residents from being victims.

In East Honolulu, where an alarmingly high crime rate has dropped by nearly half, Capt. Scott Foster said, "The community involvement has been the biggest thing to help reduce crime."

Beyond catching the thieves, Correa said, jail time would help keep career criminals out of people's homes.

Earlier this month, he said, police arrested a 42-year-old Kailua man for breaking into a car to find that the suspect was already on probation for burglary. "There's no saying how long he'll be held" in jail, Correa said.

Because of prison overcrowding and a large number of violent crime convicts, it's rare that property criminals serve a full sentence of 10-years for a class B felony, he said.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Larry Grean said the prosecutor's office has sped up the process for geting thieves with lengthy criminal records off the streets.

"We do have the power to take some of these people and charge them, and set bail high, and hopefully keep them incarcerated until trial," he said.

"I think that you're going to find a lot of these people are not going to get the lenient treatment that they got in the past," Grean said, citing that alternative prison space is being found in places like Texas.

Police estimated that $18.5 million worth of property was stolen in burglaries throughout Oahu last year.

Waianae theft detective Wendell Idemoto sees a connection in his community, with people stealing to feed drug addictions.

"I'm seeing there is probably a little more people (committing burglaries) than there was before. I think that's because of drugs," he said.

"The number of people committing property crimes on drugs is phenomenal," Grean said. "There are people who commit property crimes who might be eligible for drug court," he said of the state's alternative to jail for nonviolent offenders. Drug court is designed to give people a chance of rehabilitation before they get a lengthy criminal record, Grean said.

However, he said, "Our main thrust is to go after the people who repeat. When you have a no-nonsense attitude, some of these people are not going to get into drug court."