"How pathetic!" "Is she on drugs?" "To have all that money and need to steal! Could it be true?"

When the department store cameras confirmed the accusations of theft, the judgments on Winona Ryder erupted. The consensus was clear: Winona Ryder had a problem, and she must be punished and treated. Who in their right mind would commit such egregious theft?

Just ask Helen Wechsler, director of Boston College Dining, whose mine of student-purchasing (and theft) data would make a food marketer's Christmas. In a recent conversation, Wechsler confirmed, "These numbers are simply shocking." These "numbers" are the rates of student theft in the dining halls, a problem that is more prevalent than one might think.

Food service, Wechsler said, is an industry whose researchers expect theft averages of 4 percent, but in this respect, BC more than exceeds the standard: Patrons of BC Dining steal approximately 9 percent of all products.

I was floored at the numbers - almost one out of 10 items are stolen - but then I remembered one time freshman year when I was caught with a chicken breast camouflaged by my salad. Or on another trip to McElroy as a Gonzaga resident, I put a brownie in the bottom of a fro-yo cup - I guess I'm the guilty one too, although I kicked the habit, so to speak.

We all are guilty, and the justifications abound. "This place is taking 45 grand of my money, so I'm gonna take all the Dasani I can get." Or: "It's just an Odwalla Bar, that's, like, a buck." Or: "Whatever, I've never eaten a sushi box I paid for. Just shove it in your sweatpants."

We talk of service, justice, and "men and women for others," but our deeds betray our words. Just a cursory review of the numbers points to a theft epidemic: 24 bottles of Dasani water are stolen from each facility per day of operation for 300 days of operation in one year. Shifting the location of Odwalla bars from a rack close to the registers toward a kiosk obscured by other product stands saw theft spike from 2 percent to 15 percent. Trial candy sales witnessed consistent theft of 8 percent of the total supply. Needless to say, we'll never see Reese's Pieces in McElroy.

"But the prices are so high!" retort fellow students. Well, let's look at another set of numbers: Unlike most supermarkets, BC Dining guarantees a 40-hour work week to all dining employees. Thirty-seven percent of all employee benefits are footed directly by BC Dining, and these range from health and dental to 401(k) and tuition remission for employees and their families. Long before "living wage" was in the lexicon of an altruistic public forum, BC Dining was paying at least twice the federal minimum wage to all employees.

And so it is those very employees of BC Dining that become surrogates of law enforcement when their job description is quite different. Mr. Kwon is forced to look upon each student with suspicion, and Paula V. has to peek under the coffee lids to make sure a tea bag is steeping in hot water rather than resting on some fro-yo.

Perhaps more disturbing, employees of BC Dining, many of whom are immigrants, are given a cruel reminder of socioeconomic and educational inequity on a daily basis. Their response to food-stealing students is analogous to ours toward Winona Ryder: With all the money on your Eagle-One card and the opportunity to get an undergraduate degree, why put a cheesesteak in your hoodie or shove a SmartWater in your purse? "How pathetic!" "Are they on drugs?" "To have all that money and need to steal! Could it really be true?"

Matt Hamilton is a Heights staff columnist. He welcomes comments at hamiltonm@bcheights.com.

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