I have used this quote several times before because it is so spot-on in describing how civil societies function:

Crime will expand according to our willingness to put up with it.  

California, in a typical Progressive act based entirely on idealized intentions with no grounding in reality, decided that the best way to deal with overcrowding in prison was to decrease the number of felons in the state.

One way they did that was to increase the dollar value of stolen goods required to make theft a felony.  Previously, stealing less than $450 in goods was a misdemeanor.  With the passage of Prop 47,  stealing less than $950 in goods is a misdemeanor

As people grounded in reality, we can predict what happened.

Criminals have gotten more brazen.

They know that police will not engage in a high-speed car chase over a non-violent misdemeanor and most companies have policies against (and will often fire) employees who try and stop shoplifting.

So why not steal just about whatever they want and drive away?

According to the Independent Institute:

California Property Crime Surge Is Unintended Consequence of Proposition 47

Across the state, one common characteristic of the smash-and-grab burglaries is particularly striking: the property stolen is frequently valued below the felony threshold established by Prop 47. This means that criminals can expect, at most, a misdemeanor citation if they are caught.

Many believe this light punishment has made criminals more brazen, willing to break into cars in broad daylight even with bystanders present. Because Prop 47 redefined felony thresholds, even stealing a car can bring only a misdemeanor sentence if it is valued at $950 or less. As San Francisco police spokesperson Officer Albie Esparza acknowledged, Prop 47 has reduced penalties to “nothing more than a citation.”

In 2015, the first year of Prop 47’s relaxed rules, the rate of shopliftings spiked by nearly 11 percent over the previous five-year average. That year, about 279 shopliftings were reported per 100,000 residents, roughly 11,000 additional shopliftings throughout the state in the year immediately following the initiative’s enactment. These figures are consistent with FBI crime data, which showed a 12 percent jump in larceny theft.

So the effect of making stealing just shy of a grand worth of property the same as speeding, has caused a more than 10% increase in shopliftings.

Who would have guessed that?  Anybody with an iota of common sense.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports something similar:

Prop. 47 is linked to increase in auto thefts, study says

Thefts from motor vehicles averaged 16,000 to 17,000 a month statewide before Prop. 47 passed in November 2014 and increased to 19,000 to 20,000 a month in the next two years, the Public Policy Institute of California reported Tuesday, citing state data.

“We estimate that Prop. 47 led to a rise in the larceny theft rate of about 135 per 100,000 residents, an increase of close to 9 percent compared to the 2014 rate,” the institute said. It said thefts from motor vehicles accounted for about three-quarters of the increase.

In San Francisco, auto break-ins soared, by 24 percent last year to a total of 31,222, according to police data.

I have covered San Francisco’s epidemic of car break-ins before.  If you have a car parked on a street in Feces City, it will be broken into.

On the other hand, the study also found that Prop. 47 had borne out some of its supporters’ predictions: drops in the prison and jail populations and the costs related to them, and reductions in recidivism, or repeated crimes by people previously convicted of drug and property offenses.

Except… (who wants to guess)

Michele Hanisee, president of the prosecutors’ group, also disputed the conclusion in Tuesday’s report that Prop. 47 had led to lower recidivism rates. She said the reason police were making fewer arrests for crimes such as shoplifting and auto break-ins was that state law prohibits officers from arresting people for misdemeanor crimes that an officer did not personally observe.

“Police can arrest for a felony not in their presence” but not for a theft that is now classified as a misdemeanor, Hanisee said. “For people whose car gets burglarized, the police can do nothing.”

Recidivism is down only on paper because the people let out of prison by Prop 47 are limiting themselves to misdemeanors so are not being re-arrested and sent back to prison.

This is the classic NYPD “crime is down, we know that because we have documented fewer arrests because our cops ignore more petty crimes, so even though it is worse for you on the street, our stats say it’s an improvement.”

If I were a man inclined to believe in conspiracies, I’d suspect that part of this initiative is to reduce the number of felons because people with misdemeanors can vote – overwhelmingly for Democrats.

Policy after policy put in place in California turns that state into a greater dystopia for law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.  Consider that when it comes to national elections.