NANAKULI — Snapshots of folks caught in the act of stealing can be found on YouTube or any of thousands of other Internet sites.

Or you can check the front window of the Fastop convenience store on Farrington Highway — where on any given day dozens of surveillance photos of shoplifters are posted for all to see.

On Tuesday, when 16-year-old Brandon Lindley gazed at the photo lineup, there were 55 pictures taped to the glass. He spotted a couple of familiar faces.

"That's my cousin," Lindley told a friend as he tapped on the image with his index finger. "And that's another one there."

"I know this guy," added Pepa James, 21, a cashier at the store. "His name is George."

Tim Mattos, a special-education teacher at Nanakuli High School, eyeballed the rogues gallery and happily announced that none of his students were featured in the photographs.

The pictures, mostly of underage kids brazenly walking off with armloads of beer, include times and dates of thefts, and such notices as, "Do you recognize any of them?" or "Stole beer from Fastop."

The photos are proving to be more than a curiosity. Lately they've helped Fastop turn the tide against a serious theft problem in Nanakuli.

"We've had some success with the beer runs in which parents will come in and actually pay for it (the stolen six- and 12-packs)," said Rod Cabral, general manager of all four Fastop locations on O'ahu where surveillance photo systems have been installed.

Cabral said that while the stores have posted photos of thieves for several years, the practice wasn't successful because of poor image quality and the limited number of surveillance cameras at each store.

That changed last year with the installation of an upgraded system that uses 16 wide-angle, color video cameras to cover virtually every inch of each location, inside and out.

Since then, beer thefts by minors have dropped, Cabral said.

Cabral said a police report is filed for every theft at the store. But the real power of the posted pictures of young suspects swiping brew is that they serve as a deterrent because of the guilt, or shame factor.

"It's embarrassing for the family," he said. "After many of the thefts occur inside the store, the parents come in and want to pay for the stolen beer."

SHAME FACTOR

When a parent picks up the beer tab, their child's photograph is immediately taken off the window, Cabral said.

Kid thieves have come in on their own and offered to pay for stolen beer to get their photos yanked. But the store can't accept money from them because it would be the same as selling them beer — which, of course, is illegal.

One boy entered the Nanakuli store, ripped down his own picture and stomped out.

"We just put up another," said Cabral with a laugh.

"Just a month ago we had a situation at our Pacific Palisades store. Same scenario. The kid picked up two packages of Heineken and walked off without paying. We posted the photo. And the next day the mom came in and paid for the beer."

Whereas there might be one or two posted surveillance photos at Fastop's Pacific Palisades, Mililani or School Street locations, Cabral said there could be a couple of dozen or more at the Nanakuli store.

He said he isn't sure why, but he knows that posting the photos is helping.

"Our hope is to deter the person from coming back into our store again. We, of course, don't know what happens to the kid after that, because the parents have taken over. That in itself is a positive because now the parents are aware of it."

UNDERAGE DRINKING

Michael Kahikina, the Honolulu Police Department's community policing officer on the Wai'anae Coast, said underage drinking has become a huge concern in the area. He said HPD's District 8 officers are working on ways to curb the region's youth drinking problem.

Kahikina said Fastop is the only location he knows of that posts surveillance shots of underage lawbreakers.

Once a suspect has been identified, Kahikina said, police can arrest the alleged thief and turn him or her over to the Family Court system. But he believes just posting the incriminating pictures has a sobering effect on some junior beer guzzlers.

"To me that's more of an embarrassment than anything else," he said. "And that is very, very effective."