‘Smash-and-Grab’ Sprees Leave Lawmakers Reaching for Tougher Policies

Amid a wave of “smash-and-grab” thefts, California legislators are reconsidering a 2014 law that classified such acts as misdemeanors if less than $950 is stolen.As California weighs action, other states and cities are also deciding whether to adopt tougher policies to combat shoplifting and other related crimes.Critics believe the California law, commonly referred to as Prop 47, is a direct contribution to the increase in mob looting and rampant crime throughout the Golden State’s major cities.On Tuesday, state legislators will address possible changes to the law during a hearing in Sacramento.“The key to success with the criminal offender is predictable progressive consequences,” a Republican state senator, James Nielsen, said. A former chairman of the California Board of Prison Terms, he co-authored a bill to make felonies all retail thefts of more than $400, as they were before 2014. “We destroyed the predictability of progressive consequences, so the repeat offender is now invited, emboldened, to repeat offend,” Mr. Nielsen said.Democrats, too, are acknowledging the crime problem, with one member of the state assembly, Rudy Salas, introducing a bill to amend Prop 47 by lowering the felony threshold but retaining other “soft-on-crime” elements of the law.Mr. Nielsen said Mr. Salas’s bill is “at best a half-step” and “not the answer.” He supports a full repeal of Prop 47 and says Californians were deceived by “the verbiage of that act and how it was presented — ‘Safe Neighborhoods and Schools’ is everything but that.”Despite the support of local officials in multiple counties, some believe the effort to repeal Prop 47 may be in vain due to the opposition of Democrats in the state legislature and that of Governor Newsom. Mr. Nielsen acknowledged the stiff opposition but said he listens to the citizens of California.A recent University of California – Berkeley survey found 59 percent of state voters favor making the law tougher on crime, Los Angeles Times reported. Sixty-five percent reported that they felt crime had increased locally.“We’re going to have some change because the people have been victimized,” said Mr. Nielsen, who considers himself the grandfather of the crime victims’ movement in California as co-author of Marsy’s Law, a bill of rights for crime victims.Mr. Newsom, an ardent supporter of Prop 47, dismissed the idea of any link to the rise in mob crime. “It seems to me that there’s deterrence when people are arrested for breaking the law and are prosecuted,” said Mr. Newsom. “We need arrests and we need prosecution. We need people held to account.” In December, Mr. Newsom pledged nearly $300 million in his “Real Public Safety Plan” to combat the smash-and-grab thefts. So far, it’s been difficult to see any positive results.Similar problems with mob looting have been reported in cities including Boston, New York, Orlando, and New Orleans.In Illinois, a Republican state representative, James Durkin, is sponsoring a bill to make crimes involving organized theft of $300 or more a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. In a press release, Mr. Durkin said, “It is time we reset our criminal justice system and hold those who disregard our laws accountable.”After the mob looting of a Louis Vuitton store at White Plains, New York, a GOP gubernatorial candidate and erstwhile Westchester county executive, Robert Astorino, tweeted, “Crime doesn’t just happen ‘in the city’ or ‘somewhere else.’ It’s getting worse everywhere in New York and everyone is affected when criminals are emboldened by soft-on-crime laws.”Some Democrats may be realizing the flaws in their “soft-on-crime” policies. In February, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, walked back two policies on prosecution of crimes involving weapons. Los Angeles’s district attorney, George Gascón, reversed a number of policies on juvenile offenders. As far as reworking Prop 47, if approved, either bill would go through the committee process once more before being sent to Mr. Newsom. Ultimately, it is California’s voters who will have the final say.

‘Smash-and-Grab’ Sprees Leave Lawmakers Reaching for Tougher Policies

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