For as much money as students invest in textbooks, having them stolen can be quite irritating.

Even after book thefts occur, some students don’t deem it necessary to report the theft to the University Police or to the bookstore.

“I didn’t get [my textbooks] reported as stolen,” said David Sorrell, a senior political science public administration and service major.

Some students said they do not report textbooks as stolen items because many books are not worth a large amount of money upon reselling them.

“It was near the end of the semester and I didn’t need the book. I was only going to get $20 for it,” Sorrell said. “It wasn’t worth my time.”

Holmes Student Center bookstore manager Don Turk said that book theft complaints are not common.

“We really don’t hear many of those,” Turk said.

Lt. Curtis Young of the UP echoed Turk’s viewpoint.

“We didn’t get much,” Young said. “The number of complaints went down substantially to only three complaints over the last year.”

Turk said some students put identifiable marks in the books as soon as they purchase them in order to prevent theft. Young said this can be a wise decision on the part of students.

“Without marks, books are rarely recovered,” Young said.

The largest number of theft reported by students occurs during the book buyback period at the end of each semester, Turk said. He encourages students to not leave books unattended for any amount of time.

These crimes, like many others, are largely relative to circumstance, Young said.

“[A] small percentage of people do crime, it’s based on opportunity,” he said.

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