Having the penalty be a slap on the wrist and having the person is released same day, it’s essentially the same as not prosecuting them. NY state bail reforms, and in San Fran;
“ In 2014, a ballot referendum passed that downgraded the theft of property less than $950 in value from a felony charge to a misdemeanor.”
That’s not the same claim at all - those people can and are being prosecuted: bail wouldn’t matter if they weren’t! Similarly, changing the threshold for a felony theft charge doesn’t prevent anyone from being prosecuted.
That’s the claim made by someone running for office on a tough on crime platform, so I’d want a more objective source and especially comparisons to other cities.
For example, one other explanation is that police have gone on a soft-strike trying to reduce popular support for anti-police brutality laws. If that were the case, the focus should instead be on disciplinary measures for the officers who aren’t answering calls.
The big thing we’d really want would be comparisons with other cities. We hear a lot about NYC and LA both because they’re large but also because they are synonymous with liberal in right-wing media, where billions of dollars annually are spent promoting that narrative. One of the first questions should be comparing rates to less popularly-mentioned cities, especially in states where sentencing thresholds haven’t changed.
