Whenever we hear of robberies, we tend to focus our sympathy toward the victims — the persons or stores that were robbed. We should remember that there are other indirect victims on whom property crimes also take a substantial toll.
I refer to the thousands of public servants in our justice system for whom the work of investigating, prosecuting, trying, and incarcerating thieves entails considerable time and expense. Taxpayers are also affected. The cost of processing such crimes frequently dwarfs the value of the stolen property.
A few years ago, the State of California set about to rectify this problem with Proposition 47, entitled the “Reduced Penalties for Some Crimes Initiative.” Supporters, including a former San Francisco district attorney and a former San Diego police chief, called it the “Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act” because, they said, it would free up law enforcement officers to pursue more dangerous criminals.
The proposition promised to make neighborhoods and schools safer by raising from $500 to $950 the threshold for felony shoplifting, grand theft, receiving stolen property, forgery, fraud, and writing bad checks.
In 2014, Proposition 47 passed with nearly 60% of the vote. Formerly “grand theft” was now a misdemeanor, so long as the loot did not exceed $950. Misdemeanors are much less costly to process than felonies because they don’t trigger expensive investigations or prison sentences. They only call for a citation requesting the alleged thief to appear in court (and then only if the cops happen to know his identity and address). Sometimes the suspect no-shows in court, and that saves the state even more money in court costs. California calls that a win-win.
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