Is teen cheating, shoplifting on the rise?

As headlines go, here’s an attention-grabber: “High schoolers lie, cheat, but say they’re good.”

In a hurry Monday morning, I still took time to read the whole article. The gist of it was that 64 percent of high school students in a nationwide survey said they had cheated on a test in the past year, and 30 percent said they’d stolen from a store.

The Associated Press story in Monday’s Herald cited a survey of 29,760 teens by the Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics education organization. Students were surveyed, anonymously and in class, at 100 randomly selected public and private high schools.

At risk of sounding like a grouchy old-timer who begins every conversation with “back in my day,” don’t those numbers seem mighty high?

When I was about 9, I stole a pack of gum from a Spokane drugstore. I rode my bike home, stashed the gum in a drawer, and peeked out the window for days to see if the police would show up. I ended up throwing that gum away in shame. That’s the extent of my stealing.

I considered secretly writing Spanish verb conjugations on my arm for high school tests, but never did it.

Today, the Internet not only provides instant access to information, but offers term papers for sale. Phone-carrying teens can text questions and answers as fast as lightning. And for some kids, discipline at home is a foreign concept.

Linda Johannes, vice president and general manager of the Everett Mall, said it’s disheartening to see parents make excuses for kids who are caught shoplifting. “We see too much of that,” she said. “We just like to see parents hold their kids accountable for their bad decisions.”

Nora Beggs is director of security at Everett Mall. She said shoplifting increases when schools are out for vacations. In the decade she has worked at the mall, Beggs has seen changes not so much in the volume of shoplifting but in parental reaction to it. “When I was younger, had I done some of the things kids do now, I would have gotten the apple switch,” she said.

I’m no fan of corporal punishment, but I do agree that in many ways we’ve lost the notion of consequences for kids. Whatever happened to that often-heard threat, “Just wait until your father gets home”?

Shannon Sessions, a Lynn­wood Police Department spokeswoman and crime prevention specialist, isn’t convinced that more kids are shoplifting than in the past. Yet even with security cameras and stores employing loss prevention workers, people of all ages and from all walks of life are brazen enough to steal.

Lynnwood’s Alderwood mall is a target, she said. “Usually an employee will notice it first,” Sessions said. “Mall security will follow a person on camera and notify 911. Police apprehend the person as they leave the mall.”

Charges depend on the monetary values of stolen merchandise, Sessions said. Even a misdemeanor can bring jail time, she added. “We talk a lot to at-risk youths,” she said. “Some of them really think they have something owed to them, they have that attitude.”

And cheating in school?

In the Marysville School District, assistant superintendent Gail Miller said a student rights and responsibilities handbook addresses cheating. “It is subject to disciplinary action,” she said. Language arts teachers and librarians emphasize that copying from the Internet is plagiarism. “Many teachers use turnitin.com, a Web site to check whether students have copied,” Miller said.

Consequences are handled teacher by teacher, she said. “The standard was in existence in our day, it’s to get a zero or no credit for the test,” Miller said.

Lakewood High School principal Dale Leach said the school’s handbook lists strong consequences for cheating, from flunking the assignment to school suspension and loss of credit for a class. He’s seen whole papers plagiarized from the Internet, and kids trying to use cell phones to get answers during exams.

“So much now is shades of gray,” Leach said, offering the example of famous athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. “Unfortunately, our news is littered with people trying to shade the rules to be successful.

“Some kids will sacrifice integrity for a better grade,” Leach said. “Kids don’t have the foresight to look at long-term consequences. It’s risk and rewards — will I get caught?”

Sessions, the police spokeswoman, sees the results of serious risk-taking. “If you don’t get caught the first time, you will get caught another time,” she said.

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.