The purpose of grading is to provide an appropriate punishment. I'm my state, the grading for retail theft starts low, but depends on the value of the item. After a few times it becomes a felony for anything, such as a man who was in the news as getting a felony for stealing a candy bar. If it's always going to be a felony with potential prison time, then people might think "why not steal that riding lawn mower if the punishment is the same as a candy bar". Same risk, might as well increase the reward.
Theft seems pretty clear. Either you pay for something, or you don't. If you don't, you know you didn't.
I don't see how "light theft" is something we should tolerate.
If we want to talk about humane solutions, carve out an exception for food theft. But nobody is stealing a $500 drill because they're starving for power tools.
(And, this isn't just me expressing personal moral preferences. Theft is a tax on everyone who does pay for goods, via price increases)
"Either you pay for something, or you don't. If you don't, you know you didn't."
That's not exactly true. There can be items that are confusing, such as whether or not a bin or bucket comes with a lid. With the advent of self checkouts, it's also possible that someone rings up an item incorrectly just by accident, especially with non bar codes items. People could be prosecuted for this depending on the state's requirements. The burden of proof can be quiet low.
"But nobody is stealing a $500 drill because they're starving for power tools."
Here you are using $500 as an example. Do you feel the same if someone takes an extra 10 cent washer?
"If we want to talk about humane solutions, carve out an exception for food theft."
I don't think food theft should be an exception - just the same as the current grading tier. There are many programs and food banks that people can use to get food.
What are your thoughts on other crimes with different gradings? Should assault always be a felony? Should speeding always be considered reckless endangerment?
Again, the grading is supposed to provide an appropriate punishment based on the severity of the crime.
If a store prosecutes their customers for stealing a $0.10 washer, they won't have customers for long.
My personal opinion is that the severity of consequence should be relative to the people the crime affects.
Theft (retail, insurance, etc) exists in this weird limbo where the primary victim (the business) isn't the customer. However, it's ultimately the customer who pays.
So light-touching theft prosecution is effectively not caring about taxing customers. Most of whom don't even know they're being taxed.
Yeah, most stores have limits and try to resolve any possible misunderstandings. Walmart prosecutes starting at $20.
Maybe your state is different, but I wouldn't call it light touching in my state. First offense, is a summary offense if the merchandise was under $150. That's a fine, restitution, and up to 90 days in jail. So possibly a light touch if there's no jail time, but generally going to jail means losing your job and such for lack of attendance. Higher amounts or subsequent offenses constitute misdemeanors (up to 3 years in prison), or felonies (up to 5 years in prison. Even without prison terms, people can lose their job, be denied jobs, lose their rights, etc from these higher level penalties. Which I think is fine when there's this step grading for value and repeat offenses (still some outliers like a man getting a felony for a candy bar, although it seemed like he probably had a mental issue that was causing these low dollar thefts, so probably needs to have some exception to get these people treatment). I believe this serves the purpose of preventing and rehabilitating low level offenders so that they don't become larger offenders in the future, and if they do then they get higher penalties.
If we're talking about the USA, it depends on the color of the kid's skin. White juveniles are sent home with a stern verbal admonishment, black juveniles are sent to prison at the first opportunity.
>In 1995, African American youths made up 12% of the population, but were arrested at rates double those for Caucasian youths. The trend towards adult adjudication has had implications for the racial make-up of the juvenile prison population as well. Minority youth tried in adult courts are much more likely to be sentenced to serve prison time than white youth offenders arrested for similar crimes.
>According to the Equal Justice Initiative, Black children are more than twice as likely as white kids to be arrested, even though they’re not committing more crimes, but because Black Kids are burdened by a “presumption of guilt and dangerousness,” which leads youth of color to have higher rates of stops, searches, violence, suspension, and disproportionate contact with the juvenile justice system.
>As of 2013, black juveniles were more than four times as likely to be committed as white juveniles, Americans Indian juveniles were more than three times as likely, and Hispanic juveniles were 61 percent more likely.
>However, research has documented the existence of racial disparity in the treatment of youth involved in the juvenile justice system for several decades. Studies from the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated that black juveniles were detained and confined at higher rates compared with white youth, and that black youth were more likely to be sent to correctional facilities compared with white youth, who were more likely to be sent to psychiatric hospitals. Additionally, recent studies have documented the continued trend of overrepresentation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system
Proof of higher incarceration is not proof of unequal application of law. Additionally, sentencing takes into account past actions of the individual.
Did they commit more crimes?
Additionally if the whole racial bias theory is true (i don't agree that it is) then why should be incarcerating blacks less? I think the appropriate response would be to incarcerate white people more often.
I'm not seeing the data, please link it. All I see are some quotes referring to a Mother Jones article and a lot of assumptions.
You need data showing white kids are stopped for crime and released to prove this, not just some random left leaning organizations that says it's true.
>What makes "stealing less than $1k" more acceptable?
The cost to the victim. Someone grabs a few unsecured tie downs off a truck at a truck stop that's a hundred bucks. Someone scraps some spools of copper stolen from a job site and it could be thousands.
I think having a step function where you define all theft below a dollar amount as one type and then above as a different type is just legacy code from back in the day when it wasn't reasonable for the legislature to just say "the fine will be X-times the replacement cost of the goods or an equivalent jail time as determined by table Y in appendix Z" and expect the courts to be able to enforce it in an efficient enough manner.
The fact that we we have basically two classes of crime that include both violent and nonviolent crime results in a lot of overlap where you can have some pretty bad misdemeanors and some pretty mild felonies all depending on legal technicalities.
Don't forget summary offenses. Some of them can carry jail time. In PA you can get 90 days in jail for having a dog get loose from your yard. Additionally, a second offense within one year becomes a misdemeanor.
You're stealing something.
What makes "stealing less than $1k" more acceptable?