While rising gas prices have caused more gas thefts across the nation, Oxford seems to be unaffected.
Sgt. Jim Squance of Oxford Police Department said that gas thefts have not been more common than usual, despite climbing prices.
"I don't think it's more than usual, especially with the price of gas," Squance said.
Jeff Birkenhauer, manager of the Circle K gas station on Spring Street agreed.
"We don't have a problem with that here," Jeff said.
According to Squance, there have been several instances of mistaken gas theft.
"A lot of it has to do with malfunctions at the pumps," Squance said.
He explained that people often pay with credit cards, and do not wait to see if it went through before driving out of the gas station. According to Squance, in most of these cases, police locate the driver of the vehicle and follow up with them, at which time they pay for the gas they had accidentally taken.
Squance also said that there are some instances in which people legitimately forget to pay for their gas, paying the difference upon being tracked down and reminded.
Squance said that cameras at gas stations have cut down on theft in recent years, particularly since police can look at tapes and match a license plate number to a resident in order to better track them down.
However, Oxford is still not immune to the trend. At a recent gas theft at The Colony Food Mart Oct. 1, a total of $60.01 worth of gas was taken by a customer that the clerks claimed to recognize as a regular patron.
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Another recent theft occurred Sept. 23 at United Dairy Farmers (UDF). The suspect, who reportedly appeared to be college-aged male, took $46.00 worth of gas.
A number of other gas thefts occurred at UDF (in the amounts of $13, $39 and $60) since August, as well as one at the Circle K on North College Avenue.
But according to economics professor William Hart, gas thefts do not cause great stress on the economy.
Hart said, however, that gas thefts can hurt individual businesses and could eventually hurt a specific station's consumers.
"(Gas theft) raises the cost of doing business and ordinarily would increase the price of gas to cover the loss from theft," Hart said. "This may not be the case with gasoline, though, because of local competition among various stations."
According to Hart, gas prices may continue to fall due to the current economic crisis.
"In the near future, I expect gas prices to keep falling because the economy seems headed into a recession and recessions reduce the demand for energy," Hart said.
According to Hart, much of the recent increase in gas prices is attributed to the effects of Hurricane Ike on refineries in the United States and the Gulf of Mexico.
"We temporarily lost about 25 percent of our refinery capacity when Ike ran through the Gulf and supply of gas fell, so the price of gas rose," Hart said.
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