The number of automobile thefts on O'ahu has dropped nearly 42 percent since 2002 due in part to an aggressive program by police and city prosecutors to charge suspects immediately after they are caught with a stolen vehicle.

Police had detected a pattern in which suspects would steal a car at the start of a crime spree, using it in, for instance, a burglary of a home or business, followed by the use of stolen checks or credit cards for financial fraud, said police Maj. Carlton Nishimura, head of the Honolulu Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division.

"There's a strong link between the auto theft, the burglaries, the financial fraud and drugs," he said. "The emphasis of the Police Department was to break this cycle."

Auto thefts reached a 10-year high of 8,488 in 2002, or an average of more than 23 vehicles per day. Operation Pit Stop began in June 2003 in Pearl City, one of eight Honolulu police districts, and the district with one of the highest numbers of auto thefts.

Auto thefts declined slightly in 2003 and have fallen every year since, to 4,937 in 2007. That's a 41.8 percent decrease from 2002.

And so far, 2008 looks like it might be even lower.

Among the nation's 361 largest metropolitan areas, Honolulu has dropped from being 21st among cities with the highest number of stolen vehicles per 100,000 people in 2005 to 82nd highest in 2007, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

In the United States, a vehicle is stolen every 26 seconds, according to a report on the NICB Web site.

Hawai'i's auto theft decline continues and could lead to another dramatic drop this year over last year, said Tim Dayton, general manager of Geico Hawaii. As of May, only 1,100 vehicles had been stolen, Dayton said, referring to theft numbers tracked by the insurance industry.

Police and city prosecutor say Operation Pit Stop was a significant factor in the recent decline.

Under Operation Pit Stop, police don't have to adhere to the standard criteria for charging a suspect and keeping him or her in jail, said Lynne Uyema, screening and intake division chief for the prosecuting attorney. The standard practice was for police to hold only the most dangerous offenders, Uyema said.

The prosecutors and the police had recognized that some of these automobile thieves may have been arrested for the first time but in reality they were already career criminals, Uyema said.

"With Pit Stop, once you're caught we're going to charge you and keep you unless you can make bail and that alone stems the tide of seeing multiple cars being stolen from the same area and the resulting peripheral crimes: the burglaries, the forgeries, the identity thefts," she said.

The goal of Operation Pit Stop is to charge suspects when they are caught in possession of a stolen car and set a bail, which gets them off the street before they can commit another crime, and if they can't make the bail, they are in jail until their trial, said Detective Thomas Santos, with the Pit Stop program in HPD's Windward District.

"There's almost like a zero-tolerance in charging for auto theft now in certain geographical areas," Santos said. "The whole purpose is to aggressively prosecute people who are driving stolen vehicles. That's why we see a lot of decline in auto theft numbers."

Statistics on the overall number of charges for automobile theft aren't available, primarily because charging happens at various locations by different police divisions and there is no way to compile all of the numbers, said Nishimura. But CID has begun to track the cases and Pearl City has some records from 2005.

Since December 2005, Pearl City officers have made 119 auto theft arrests and of those, 72 were charged, said Maj. David Kajihiro, who recently took charge there.

Of the 72, only 38 would have met the old standard for charging and holding, and the rest, 34, would have been released, Kajihiro said.

"If not for Pit Stop, we wouldn't have charged these 34 and they would go right back out and steal another car," he said.

Pit Stop deters crime as well, Kajihiro said. "They know if they get caught stealing a car something will happen immediately."

Pit Stop was added to District 1 (Central Honolulu) and District 5 (Kalihi) in 2005 and last year District 4 (Windward) got it.

At this time there are no plans to add the program to other districts, said Michelle Yu, police spokeswoman.

"It's a possibility but it's not planned for the immediate future," Yu said. "They have to take a look at their resources."

Though Operation Pit Stop is in place in just four of eight HPD districts, Nishimura believes it's making a difference across the island.

Criminals are transient, moving from community to community to commit their crimes, Nishimura said.

"It's not like the Pearl City crooks stay in Pearl City," he said. "It doesn't matter where they're arrested and charged, as long as they are."

Waikiki was the only district to see an increase in auto theft over last year, and Nishimura said that could be for various reasons including tourists not being able to identify a suspect, criminals leaving the area quickly or victims refusing to return for a trial.

Although the aggressive program is linked to a reduced rate of stolen vehicles, Nishimura said there are other factors contributing to the falling numbers. For instance, public awareness and education have people protecting their property better, he said.

"I think finally after three, four years, we broke the cycle and auto thefts went down dramatically," Nishimura said.

The reduced automobile thefts, claims paid out, and accidents could mean reduced or stable insurance rates, said Dayton, of Geico.

"I think you will continue to see the cost of auto insurance go down but rates today don't reflect what's happened in the past six months," he said. "Rates are set based on what happened in the last couple of years, projecting that forward."