"Instead of freeing up cops and prosecutors to focus on violent crimes, as those who supported Prop 47 in 2014 suggested, the new(ish) law has caused a spike in property crimes and thefts.
"Last year, the president of the California Retailers Association said these new-age shoplifters know exactly what they're doing: 'They will bring in calculators and get all the way up to the $950 limit. One person will go into a store, fill up their backpack, come out, dump it out, and go right back in and do it all over again.'
"That was before gangs of dozens got involved. Now they know they have safety in numbers."
--our editorial, last week
Like a bad case of the flu, this smash-and-dash routine is spreading across the country as cold weather shows up. The media noticed it in California in 2014 after that state passed Proposition 47, which increased the monetary threshold for felony shoplifting to $950, so everything below that is only considered a misdemeanor.
But the bad guys learn. They see what's happening in California and apparently figure: Why not?
Last week in Chicago, more than a dozen people stormed into a Louis Vuitton store and were caught on camera grabbing bags and other merchandise.
Local police say the value of the merchandise was estimated at about $120, 000. That'll put a dent in the holiday season's bottom line.
This is nothing surprising in Chicago. (Buried deep in a Wall Street Journal story the other day, downtown Chicago workers say they have to be escorted to and from their cars because robberies on the streets have become "routine.")
From Ohio to Florida, smash-and-grab is becoming all the rage. Emphasis on rage. Especially for store owners. But California, with its Prop 47, leads the way.
In Beverly Hills, high-end businesses have hired private security companies to patrol shopping districts. San Francisco has been hit so hard and so often that--get this--city officials have decided to change traffic patterns around certain retailers so thieves can't easily park, rob, and split.
"We will do what we need to do to put an end to this madness," the police chief told the press.
Including making it difficult to park where shoppers would also park. We wonder what the owners of these businesses think of that strategy.
One Bay area mayor told NBC News: "If it means that we are going to detour roads, if it means we're going to have more police on the street and more security around, whatever it is, every option is on the table."
Last week in Los Angeles, a security guard was attacked with bear spray during a smash-and-grab.
Is this what progressives want?
Community disinvestment is real, too. In San Francisco, Walgreens has announced it will, or has, shuttered 22 stores. It can't handle the losses.
"Theft in Walgreens' San Francisco stores is four times the average for stores elsewhere in the country," reports The San Francisco Chronicle. "And the chain spends 35 times more on security guards in the city than elsewhere."
According to The Wall Street Journal: "Local lawmakers have said that Walgreens is too preoccupied with boosting profits, that theft isn't that bad, and that the chain should just suck up the losses."
What a chamber-of-commerce message that is!
There are a number of reasons the smash-and-dashes have increased. For example, you can re-sell nearly anything online these days. When you sell an expensive item at slashed prices, you'll have a market. And during this holiday season, stores stock up on all kinds of gift items.
But law enforcement doesn't doubt that recruiting for organized criminals is made easier when the law handcuffs police and prosecutors. Crime rings behind the smash-and-dashes pay low- level thieves to steal for them. If there aren't major consequences, then the recruiting is easier.
Laws, police forces, even private security firms may need improvements and modifications from time to occasional time. But when the pendulum swings so far in the other direction that cities must change traffic patterns to slow down criminals, then something is going terribly wrong.
This can't be what progressives want.