California Shocked - Decriminalizing Retail Theft Resulted More

**Banacek** · 09-26-2019, 04:12 PM

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)

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-sha...-retail-theft/

**noonwitch** · 09-27-2019, 08:30 AM

I'm not sure, but I think the difference between misdemeanor and felony retail fraud (shoplifting) in MI is $100. It might be $200, but either way, the guy who steals a loaf of bread is not committing a felony.

**dutch508** · 09-27-2019, 09:00 AM

Theft constitutes a Class IIA felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, when the value of the thing involved is $5,000 or more.
Theft constitutes a Class IV felony, punishable by up to two years in prison, when the value of the thing involved is $1,500 or more but less than $5,000.
Theft constitutes a Class I misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail, when the value of the thing involved is more than $500 but less than $1,500.
Theft constitutes a Class II misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail, when the value of the thing involved is $500 or less.

Nebraska Revised Statute Section 28-518