California declares shoplifting up to $950 is effectively ok

Californian voters passed Prop 47 in 2014 by  59% to 40% in no small part to a massive campaign by the left and endorsements proclaiming that the Prop would reduce prison overcrowding.

It effectively decriminalized theft so long as the value of the stolen property is less than $950. While those thefts are still misdemeanors the police don't spend any effort dealing with misdemeanors so criminals know that they can steal and get away with it.

One of the co-authors claimed that Prop 47 had reduced the prison population by 13,000 in 2015.  The obvious problem is that unless those who were no longer in prison were also no longer committing crimes having fewer people in prison is a bad thing for law abiding citizens.

What we're seeing today in California is a massive increase in shoplifting with gangs of fences being fed by people repeatedly stealing from stores; to small businesses with narrow margins a $950 theft is a big deal but even large stores can suffer significantly from repeated thefts. Given that the thieves know that nothing will happen to them if they're caught repeat offending is actually incentivized by the law.

Children are also falling victim because the criminals know that while DA's are unlikely to prosecute adults they are essentially never going to prosecute a kid for shoplifting in the Prop 47 world.

There are folks that are using and exploiting children," she[Rachel Michelin president of California Retailers Association] said. "But I also think that teenagers know that there are no consequences anymore. It's part of a game. If you get caught, all you have to do is get out of the store."

The fact that the Democrats who run California and the leftist radicals who lied to the people about Prop 47 aren't bothered by all this is just one more bit of proof that they don't care about the hard working people running small businesses in California.

Essentially the Democrats who run California and who lied to the people about this Proposition have declared that they're more concerned about being nice to criminals than they are about protecting hard working Californians.

Even when stores can survive the theft epidemic Democrats have inflicted on the state they pass on the cost via higher prices making Prop 47 essentially a highly regressive tax since sales taxes hurt the poor much more than they hurt the rich.

This is a common theme in Democrat policies; they benefit criminals and the irresponsible members of society not decent hard working Americans.