California Shocked To Find Bill Decriminalizing Retail Theft Resulted In… More Retail Theft

[PeteS in CA]

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2019/09/26/california-shocked-find-bill-decriminalizing-retail-theft-resulted-retail-theft/

California Shocked To Find Bill Decriminalizing Retail Theft Resulted In… More Retail Theft

A few years ago, California passed one in a series of bills aimed at emptying the jails and prisons. Proposition 47 carried the disingenuous name of “the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act and its stated purpose was to keep non-violent offenders out of jail. To achieve this goal, the state decriminalized a number of lesser offenses, including retail theft. The law raised the value of the amount of merchandise someone could steal while still only being charged with a misdemeanor to nearly one thousand dollars.

To the great surprise of the government, people noticed this change and began taking advantage of it. They have now recorded multiple years of steadily increasing, organized robbery. These plots are known as “mass grab and dash” thefts and they generally involve large numbers of young people all entering a store at the same time, grabbing armfuls of merchandise and dashing back out to their vehicles and hitting the highway. Not only are robberies on the rise, but arrests and prosecutions are down. Who could possibly have predicted this? (CBS Sacramento)

The article is a bit misleading. That $900 threshold between felony and misdemeanor is not simply stuff stolen from retail stores. It's theft from anywhere. That stores have been hit by it is obvious. However, in SF one result is that thieves will smash car windows if they think they see something worth stealing. That also is running rampant.

[rangerrebew]

California savors the unintended consequences of reducing penalties for theft

 
Posted by Leslie Eastman      Saturday, September 28, 2019 at 4:00pm
 

Astute Legal Insurrection readers may recall that in 2014, nearly 60% of California voters approved Proposition 47—ironically known as the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act.” The measure reduced the classification of most nonviolent property and drug crimes—including theft and fraud for amounts up to $950—from a felony to a misdemeanor.

It was a feel-good solution to address the over-crowding in the prisons related to California’s 3-strikes law. A couple years after its passage, police in San Jose were dealing with a surge in violent crime; however, Proposition 47 supporters were unmoved.

    Tom Hoffman, one of the architects of Proposition 47, which downgraded felony classifications for a series of drug possession and petty theft crimes, sympathizes with police agencies. But the former West Sacramento deputy police chief who oversaw state parole in the late 2000s asserts that incarceration can no longer be a reflexive penalty.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/09/california-savors-the-unintended-consequences-of-reducing-penalties-for-theft/

[PeteS in CA]

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