Spike In Shoplifting Blamed On California Prop 47's Reduced Penalties

In the meantime, the good residents of California get to make up the difference as the losses are made up by paying customers.

This would seem to be true. Since Prop 47 went into effect in 2015 there has been an increase in misdemeanor crimes.

But it started even before this. Someone might have an FTA - a failure-to-appear - and in days earlier if you were pulled over and the officer ran you and found the FTA you would subsequently be handcuffed and taken in on the warrant. Not anymore. They cite and release you with a promise to appear. That has no logical sense in it at all. If you had previously been released on a promise to appear and failed to appear, why would someone write you a citation and your signature states that you promise to appear?

The bottom line is that there is no room to house the misdemeanor offenders. Even some felony offenders. If for example a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy runs an individual and finds out that he has a Stanislaus County felony warrant the desk will contact Stanislaus County and see if they want to extradite. That usually means Stanislaus will come down and pick up the suspect. Exceptions to that are if there's a bus going up to the area and then the suspect will be placed on that bus and held at a stop closest to Stanislaus County and they will pick the individual up there. But invariably in this example Stanislaus County in most cases except those of the highest grade felony would decline extradition. It's even worse when it's out of state. It's all about dollars and cents. You can fairly well be assured that if you have a felony forgery charge you are less likely to be extradited then someone that has a felony murder warrant.

Back to the topic, shoplifting has long been a problem and it's only been an exasperated by Prop 47. Violators know that they're only going to get a slap on the wrist and since they are career criminals they really don't care. They may spend the night in jail and they figure it the cost of doing business especially if the merchandise was not actually recovered.

CPT Jack Durish thanks for the share, I had become oblivious to shoplifting but as it nears the holidays, it will probably get worse