Proposition 36, which increases punishments for some retail theft and drug possession offenses, overwhelmingly passed in California despite the opposition of Gov. Gavin Newsom and most Democrats. Newsom denounced the measure as something that “takes us back to the 1980s, mass incarceration.” Despite discussing her tough-on-crime record in the election, Vice President Kamala Harris refused to support the measure or even state if she voted for it. Now, however, two shoplifters may have given the law the greatest endorsement.
The Seal Beach Police Department in California released a video of three alleged shoplifters who seemed shocked to learn that the state was now cracking down on the rampant shoplifting in the state.
The video from the store shows the three casually stealing from an Ulta Beauty store with what police said was nearly $650 worth of stolen merchandise.
The police then released what is described as “… a friendly reminder that Proposition 36, which increases punishments for some retail theft and drug possession offenses, went into effect Wednesday morning in California.”
One alleged shoplifter was shocked to find out some shoplifting offenses are now considered a felony in California.
“It’s a felony?” one of the women asks the other in the back of the patrol car.
“B—h new laws,” the woman responds. “Stealing is a felony and this Orange County b—h. They don’t play.”
That could well be the next slogan for tough-on-crime measures in the state.
I have previously written about the lack of deterrence for shoplifting in cities like San Francisco and New York.
The fact is that most criminals are rational actors who make a calculus of risk in the commission of offenses. The mobs hitting stores like Bloomingdales are organized gangs. Even shoplifters stealing from stores like Costco and Target are known to quickly sell the goods on the internet through fences.
In 1968, University of Chicago economist Gary Becker wrote his famous article, “Crime and Punishment,” in which he argued that criminals make calculations based on the certainty and the severity of punishment. If you increase the certainty or likelihood of punishment, you can achieve deterrence with lower levels of punishment. Conversely, if there is a low detection rate for crime, you can deter some crimes with higher levels of punishment.
This shoplifter seems to be working out that calculus of risk belatedly in the back of a patrol car.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
There is no better indicator that prosecuting crimes, deters crimes, than this little vignette.
I live in CA, and it’s been a shoplifting and stealing free for all. It got to the point that many stores stopped bothering reporting theft to the police, because the DA wouldn’t prosecute, and instead just filed insurance claims…until they were driven out of business.
Walmart, Vons, and many local stores. now have expensive anti-theft locking cases. It takes for bloody ever to get out of Walmart, because each section of locked cases requires an employee to come with a key. Then you go two aisles over and realize you need an employee again. The cost of these measures is passed on to consumers, while the Democrat party blames corporate greed for higher prices.
My local pharmacy had to close their other location, because they were robbed too many times. The pharmacist once dumped out a box of cut locks and door handles, so we could count how many times he’d been robbed, as he’d lost count. He was once robbed while delivering pain meds to a hospice care facility. He had to remove the front window, buy a steel door, and thieves still found ways to break through the wall. He told me that the thieves would be back out on the street within hours, or at most days, and they’d return to rob him again.
Gascon released a memo detailing which crimes his office would no longer prosecute. Democrat stronghold California legalized drugs, made homeless camps on the street a human right, and reduced the felony threshold for theft to $900. It’s been a free for all for shoplifters.
“In 1968, University of Chicago economist Gary Becker wrote his famous article, “Crime and Punishment,” in which he argued that criminals make calculations based on the certainty and the severity of punishment.”
YEAH, LIKE THE DEATH PENALTY.
WGS in AZ
The author did not specify what type of felony. A low level felony can often be changed to a misdemeanor with a couple years of probation and good behavior.
They get to steal cuz……slavery
The risk analysis process habitual criminals go through, regardless of their field of crime, is hardly new. At least not to anybody taking criminology courses in university in the 70’s and 80’s.
A common text in introductory forensic criminology courses was Dr. Peter Letkemann’s textbook: Crime as Work. Letkemann conducted tens of thousands of interviews with imprisoned criminals from break and enter artists, paper hangers, confidence men, safe crackers, bank robbers, up to those doing murder for hire for gangs.
You can read the book for free online:
Crime As Work
https://archive.org/details/crimeaswork0000letk/mode/2up
Letkemann found that they talked about the crimes of their choice like oil patch workers, carpenters, electricians, etc about how they evaluated the jobs they did each week to make a living. The risks, the advantages, what to look out for, how to mitigate the risks, etc. And many expressed a sense of pride in their “workmanship”.
One common thread in his findings was that the greatest deterrence was where there was the highest probability of being caught and the sanctions for the crime after being caught were sure to be quickly imposed and predictable in what those consequences would be.
There’s a reason armed robbers are no more likely to try sticking a gun in the face of the cashier at a small town Wyoming 7-11 or Town Pump than they are likely to attempt to do the same to the cashier at a Las Vegas casino.
Whether that Wyoming Town Pump or a Vegas casino, there’s a high probability that everybody else present if you attempt the crime is better armed than you are, more willing to shoot than you are – and you’ll probably be outnumbered in any gunfight that follows. Meanwhile, states like California ensure job safety for criminals from their victims.
Democrat governments have consequences – just like elections have consequences.
Old Airborne Dog
* Yes, deterrents work on the trainable population. This group never internalize reasons for the deterrents. When there’s a break down of any kind by disaster this group reverts to opportunity to steal and other. It’s good for me and I don’t care about you. If it’s good for me it’s good. The deterrents fix is temporary.
Stolen cars worth 75 000 can’t be sold whole. They’re chopped into parts and sold giving pennies on the dollar. Theft never plays into the calculus of value or worth. Aristotle is a western philosopher , the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts. People coming from 3rd worlds have never heard of Aristotle. Third worlds are piles of rubble in things and people.
Once you’ve lost it you can’t reclaim it. Humpty dumpty effect. Aristotle is one of a kind. He doesn’t happen everyday. It’s been a long long climb.
Good for the low lifes
You have to love the balls on these people, they acted like they were picking tomatoes from the garden. Hopefully the new gardener will have some hard work for them to do in 2025.
Balls? Do you mean audacity?
KamaLaLa’s queens just need a little advance on their reparations.
It’s sad.
I remember when California was American.
I remember when california was AMERICA!
Turley, once again shoveling chum to the disciples–anything to attack Democrats, Gavin Newsome (who might be a presidential candidate), and Kamala Harris. Turley–why not write about the proposed South Carolina law that would allow the death penalty for a woman getting an abortion? The implications of that is a far more relevant topic. Or, how about Elon Musk and his multiple billion dollar contracts while he is under investigation for failing to protect state secrets and national security? “Elon Musk and SpaceX are facing a series of federal reviews investigating if they followed federal reporting rules. Three investigations will look into whether Musk and SpaceX complied with rules regarding the protection of state secrets and national security, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.” That also is a far more important topic, but the disciples have to have their perceived superiority reinforced by yet another piece attacking California, Governor Newsome and Kamala Harris. Oh those shoplifters!
No small thing.
Yes, the way to avoid incarceration is to obey the law and respect the property of others. What a novel idea.
Is there any other rational approach to taking something that does not belong to you?
This is not a political issue. It is a matter of what is right or wrong.
* Do you mean trespass? Yes, there are cultures and subcultures without that idea.
What about, what about, . . . bla, bla, bla.
Always the same skin tone…low lives…go get a job and pay for things
https://x.com/TonightWithAI/status/1854255847825670472
You really need 2 things, quickly; 1) a quick treatment for that advanced TDS, and 2) a course in anthropology/sociology what illustrates the needed infrastructure of the implementation of basic rule of law to make a culture that is functional.
Start with the basics, if you do not have a society full of people with a respect for the rule of law, you do not have a society at all, just anarchy and chaos. These 3 societal leeches are just the surface of the societal destruction brought on since lbj saddled us with the welfare state. Musk has added to our national value in so many ways while obama/biden/harris/pelosi/schumer et al have worked diligently to destroy our basic national ethos. Take your indoctrinated noggin our of your southern orifice and and smell the coffee. You have been indoctrinated and brainwashed to such a point that you may not notice common sense and cultural functionality if it smacked you between the eyes…seek help for that TDS while you still have a few functioning brain cells left.
* uncle Sam? He’s a rich man these days. Charity from the gubment happened because families broke down. Humpty dumpty…
Gigi posted her rage at thieves being jailed Turley, once again shoveling chum to the disciples–anything to attack Democrats
And you knew these three female thieves were Democrats, Gigi! Like all the rest of us did.
Not all Democrat criminal voters are willing to be a Hunter Biden crack whore to make a living as you were willing to do, Gigi
Hunter Biden Laptop Online: Featuring full frontal spreads by Biden Crack Whore Gigi
https://bidenreport.com/#p=231
Given the explicit nature of the text and pictures of the Biden Laptop, this online version of the laptop contents is for an adult readership only.
ISBN: 978-1-7371866-3-2
@2022 by ICU, LLC
Typical comment of liberals’ fantasy of crimes yet to be committed while consumers pay the price of higher prices from shoplifting. Really dude? Get over your defeat and start looking at actual crime.
Sucks to be you, traitortwat.
So are you supporting the shoplifting? I doubt that the people of California who are either paying higher prices for everything due to rampant theft, or who just no longer have a place to shop, really care all that much about Elon Musk or SpaceX contracts. Prop 36 was all about ordinary citizens who were tired of having their lives impacted by casual theft and the elected officials who decided not to care about it anymore for social engineering reasons. The young women in this story stole $650 worth of makeup and crucially didn’t think anything bad could possibly happen to them because of it. Multiply this one incident times many thousands and you have devastating losses from retailers, who either have to pass the costs along to paying customers or go out of business. Even San Francisco liberals are getting tired of having nowhere to shop (although it was their votes who put the Gascons of the world in charge, so my pity level for them is small at best).