Every year college students trade the textbooks for the sugar white sand beaches of the Emerald Coast for a non-stop party known as “Spring Break”.
But sometimes it gets out of hand.
In the past weekend alone, the Okaloosa Sheriff's Office made more then one-hundred arrests, and the reckless behavior seen during spring break may support a recent study that alludes to an increasing crime rate in America's youth.
It's all caught on tape.
Last week this surveillance video from Maui Nix Surf Shop in the Destin Commons caught a spring break criminal red-handed.
General Manger Bill Saites took down the shoplifters.
"When we questioned him, he took off running. Myself and two of the other guys who work here took chase. We chased them down to the parking garage and brought him back here where he was arrested Saites says of the incident.
The nineteen year old college student from Indiana tried to steal over $120 worth of merchandise.
But according to mybackgroundcheck.com, these kinds of instances are not surprising
The study claims that 1-in-29 college students have a criminal record.
Saites says he is not surprised.
“ No, not at all. Not if you spend a day here and see the people that come through here. It's pretty bad" adds Saites. He also says shoplifting skyrockets during spring break.
.Ted Pecot with the Okaloosa Sheriff’s Office says crime reports do increase during spring break but the majority of them are misdemeanor crimes.
"Are our arrests higher during that time? Sure they go up, but they go up because the population of Okaloosa County just about doubles during spring break” Pecot says.
So we took to the beaches to ask the spring-breakers’ themselves why the crime rate may be higher during spring break.
One twenty-two year old blames it on the alcohol
“ Alcohol. Alcohol makes you do a lot of dumb stuff” he says.
And his friend Alex Mansell?
When asked if he has ever been arrested?
He replied, “yes I have for public intoxication once."
Most of the Spring Breakers agree with the statistics from mybackground.com’s study to be extremely accurate
When one of the breakers' were asked if he believes that 1-29 college students do indeed have criminal records, he said, “Absolutely, I have one."
According to the study, over half of the convictions were driving violations followed by disorderly conduct and theft respectively.
My backgroundcheck.com based their statistics on a nationwide study of almost fourteen thousand students across one-hundred-and-twenty-five universities.