Highlights
There is a rare increase in property crime. Some suggest that it’s the result of criminal justice reform.
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Retired federal senior spokesperson. Thirty-five years of award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of criminology and public affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University.
Introduction
The National Crime Survey from The Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice released a report documenting increases in violent and property crime, Crime in America.
Property crime declined for years via the National Crime Survey and data released by the FBI (crimes reported to law enforcement).
Is criminal justice reform contributing to the rise in property crime?
Property Crimes
Among U.S. households, the property crime rate increased from 2015 to 2016, rising from 110.7 to 118.6 victimizations per 1,000 households. This is the latest available data from the National Crime Survey. Numbers for 2017 will be released by the end of the year.
The rate of property crimes for the National Crime Survey decreased in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Property crimes include household burglary, motor vehicle theft, and other theft. An increase in other theft (from 84.4 to 90.3 per 1,000 households) accounted for most of the increase in property crime.
For crimes reported to police via the FBI, property crime fell every year since 2012, Crime in America.
Criminal Justice Reform
Criminal justice reform is a process of lessening the length and severity of prison sentences. It can also apply to sentences of probation or the crimes prosecutors choose to not pursue. It involves a wide array of strategies such as the legalization or decriminalization of drug use to modifying criminal sanctions by raising the bar for felonies (i.e., increasing the threshold of felony theft to keep pace with inflation) to many other strategies, see Pew. Most states have tried variations of reform to reduce the burden of prison and parole and probation costs.
This site is supportive of several of the strategies that focus on drug and property offenders. For example, we support the legalization of marijuana; the justice system is overburned with minor offenders. We should focus our efforts on serious/repeat/violent offenders. We support additional efforts.
However, every change in policy comes with a cost. There are some in law enforcement who believe that if there are few to no consequences for lower levels of property or drug crimes, why bother to arrest? For prosecutors, why bother to charge? If there is little to no attention is given to property crimes, however minor, does it send the wrong message?
Reform Affects Property Crime in California
By far, the state examining the effects of criminal justice reform and property crime is California and their examination of Proposition 47.
Proposition 47, the state measure that reduced penalties for some property and drug crimes, did not lead to a rise in violent crime. However, larcenies did go up—driven by an increase in thefts from motor vehicles.
These are the key findings of a new report, The Impact of Proposition 47 on Crime and Recidivism, released by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).
Passed by voters in 2014, Proposition 47 continued the state’s efforts to reduce incarceration. By the end of 2016, California’s prison and jail populations had dropped by more than 15,000 inmates, and the incarceration rate is now at levels not seen since the early 1990s.
Regarding property crimes, Proposition 47 had no apparent impact on burglaries or auto thefts, but it did contribute to an increase in larcenies—such as theft from motor vehicles and shoplifting—which increased by roughly 9 percent, or about 135 more thefts per 100,000 residents. Thefts from motor vehicles account for about three-quarters of this increase.
There are many in California who are not happy with increasing violent and property crime and blame it on Proposition 47.
Other States
Alaska-Mention Senate Bill 91, or SB91 in Alaska, and the conversation gets heated. It’s often blamed when people talk about a spike in crime, especially car theft and shoplifting. People running for office often pound their fists about how they’ll repeal it. It was approved in 2016 as a criminal justice reform bill, but since its creation, it’s been blamed — fairly or not — as the reason crime increased, KTUU.Com.
Ohio-In Ohio, voters rejected a measure that would have reduced penalties for certain drug offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, Cincinnati.Com.
Conclusion
Many liberals and conservatives contend that we lock up too many people or the wrong kind of people and they want changes. Progressive prosecutors are winning races with pledges of reform and refusing to charge people for an array of minor crimes.
If you work within the justice system, it’s seemingly impossible to keep up with the endless number of people we encounter. For everyone’s sake, many contend, something has to give, which is why many encounters with law enforcement don’t end in arrest and many arrests are not prosecuted, and this was standard practice way before criminal justice reform. By the way, only forty-two percent of felony convictions get prison per Department of Justice data.
Thirty-five states have embraced sentencing and criminal justice reform.
All of us understand that crime goes up and down for reasons we can’t fully explain thus a rare increase in property crime for one year does not mean that criminal justice reform is the cause.
But everything we do within the justice system has consequences. There are signs that violent and property crimes are increasing, Crime in America.
It behooves us to keep a close eye on crime rates and totals in the coming years to see if reform helps or hurts the public.
Contacts
Contact us at leonardsipes@gmail.com.
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