Amy Hoffman felt violated.

Hoffman’s 1997 Honda Accord was stolen out of her driveway in Riverside in 2014 and was found two weeks later, spray painted, the rims missing and the dashboard ripped out. Three people in the car were arrested.

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“I felt like a rape victim getting in my car,” said Hoffman, 28, a two-time car theft victim. “My car smelled like them and they had been sitting on my seats, and I didn’t want to touch anything they touched.”

Erin dos Santos, 25, of Loma Linda, remembers the day in 2016 when she walked out of her apartment to get in her 1997 Honda Civic to run an errand, “And it was poof!” – the transportation to her college classes and teaching job had vanished.

Hoffman and dos Santos are two of the almost 200,000 people in what the National Insurance Crime Bureau describes as the metropolitan area of Riverside County, San Bernardino County and Ontario whose lives have been upended by vehicle theft since 2007.

And the thefts have run so rampant that in 2016, according to preliminary data, the Inland area rose to No. 5 in vehicle thefts per 100,000 population in the United States. The Inland area ranked No. 9 in 2015.

Inland law-enforcement officials cite the region’s sheer size and rural areas, the need for transportation and profiteering as reasons for the high number of stolen wheels. Those officials also say thefts can be reduced if owners take some simple precautions.

The Inland area in 2016 trailed only the metropolitan areas that include Albuquerque, New Mexico; Pueblo, Colorado; Bakersfield; and Modesto. Albuquerque had 10,011 thefts, or 1,114 for every 100,000 residents, in 2016. The Inland area had 25,708 thefts, or 679 per 100,000.

The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim area had the most thefts nationwide, 60,670, but ranked only 35th in thefts per 100,000 at 464.

The Crime Bureau is a not-for-profit organization that fights insurance fraud and crime and whose members include insurance, vehicle-rental and vehicle-finance companies and auto auctions.

Rural areas benefit thieves

Many factors contribute to the Inland thefts.

Riverside police Sgt. Sean Brown is a member of the Riverside Auto Theft Interdiction Detail, a multi-agency task force that investigates organized vehicle theft rings.

Cars are often stolen, Brown said, simply because a thief needs a ride to a friend’s house.

Other cars are headed to chop shops, where the cars will be stripped of high-demand parts to be resold. Thefts of trailers and off-road vehicles are common in the region’s rural areas, he said.

Sometimes pickups are stolen just for the tools stored in the bed.

And Brown believes that vehicle theft is a low-risk crime.

Prop. 47, which reduced some felony thefts to misdemeanors, and AB109, or Realignment, which indirectly prompted early releases from jails, contribute to fearless thefts, in Brown’s opinion.

“The punishment is very minimal. If nobody goes to jail for committing a crime, what’s to prevent them from committing more crimes?” Brown said.

Older vehicles targeted

Tom Boyles, a supervising investigator in the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, is a member of the San Bernardino County Auto Theft Task Force, which targets professional thieves.

Boyles said the region’s population – about 4.5 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau – means any type of vehicle a thief would want is available. And unsuspecting tourists visiting year-round sometimes leave keys in the vehicle, he said.

Ontario police Sgt. Jeff Higbee said thieves in his city have access to cars that are parked on the street, at shopping centers and at car-rental businesses.

Commonly, the stolen cars are older than the model year 2000, when manufacturers began installing more sophisticated anti-theft safeguards, Higbee said.

“Also, older vehicles have worn locks and ignitions, so it’s easier to use a tool or shim key to open the cars and start them,” he said.

Higbee also noted, “little to no jail time associated with a single theft” because of Prop. 47 and AB 109.

How to stop thieves

There are myriad ways to deter thieves, officers say: Don’t leave keys in your car; park your car in a garage, if possible; park in a well-lit area; never leave your car with the engine running while running back into the house; and lock your car and roll the windows up.

Placing a “club” locking device on your steering wheel could prompt a thief to look elsewhere, Boyles said.

“Low tech in today’s society goes a long way, because it’s much easier to break into a vehicle defeating electronic means instead of something they manually have to have tools to defeat,” he said.

Installing a system such as LoJack, which transmits the vehicle’s location to police when it is reported stolen, can aid in its recovery, officers say.

The thefts still trouble Hoffman and dos Santos.

Hoffman said she hasn’t completely repaired her car. She finally saved enough money, but now she needs a hard-to-find window part. Hoffman now parks her car as close to her destination as possible.

Dos Santos, whose car was found three days after its disappearance, believed hers would be safe on the Loma Linda University campus, but now she tells friends that’s not the case. She thought about getting a club but didn’t after her father said thieves can remove them. She did install an alarm.

“I don’t want this to happen to any of my friends,” dos Santos said.

TOP 5 MOST-STOLEN CARS IN CALIFORNIA IN 2016

The National Insurance Crime Bureau lists these cars as the most popular among thieves. The most commonly stolen model year is listed in parenthesis.

Car/Number of cars stolen

Honda Civic (1998)/26,972

Honda Accord (1996)/ 25,065

Chevrolet pickup, full size (2004)/7,152

Toyota Camry (1991)/5,196

Ford pickup, full size (2006)/5,193

THEFT-PREVENTION TIPS

Always lock your car.

Don’t leave your keys in your car.

Install an anti-theft device such as a club or kill switch.

Source: Inland law-enforcement agencies.