Petty Theft Crisis in California: Solutions and Impacts

Internal Stakeholder To: Jdoe@SFPD.gov Subject: Excessive petty theft across the State of California Police Chief Doe, I am contacting you to let you know of a problem I see in the community contributing to many monthly white-collar crimes. I will tell you the contributing factors to the problem, the solution, and the potential impact of the solution. The criminal justice problem that I would like to talk about is the department non- arrest policy regarding shoplifting. This policy has increased theft in stores and homes in the community tenfold in the past 3 years. This non-arrest policy is forcing stores to close early, lock up products in place during operation hours, and lose profits. Some store chains are also contemplating leaving the city altogether due to SFPD not arresting or responding to merchandise theft in their stores. In California stealing anything under $950.00 is considered petty theft and if violated it carries a maximum fine of $1,000 and up to six months in jail. Your department has seemingly decided to not even respond to these calls and when they do, your officers are often too late to effect an arrest. The contributing factors to this problem are 1) California State law says that stealing merchandise with a value under $950.00 is a misdemeanor, which in turn means that police most likely will not even bother to respond or investigate.

2) store employees are instructed not to intervene in stopping the criminal act by managers because they don’t want customers being hurt in the store because of the employee intervention. 3) This law has given an outright invitation to thieves to take what they want under $950.00 and due to no response by SFPD, violators have no fear of any consequences. How officers are supposed to conduct themselves while out on patrol and a clear and detailed outline of the A potential solution to the problem is to allocate officers throughout the city to be able to respond to this ever-growing disaster of theft in our city. Ensure officers are showing a presence among the community, to help deter this crime. Lastly, lobby state and local lawmakers to amend this law and help keep businesses from leaving our city. I believe if you can do these things, it can help lesson this activity. Thank you for taking the time to listen to the criminal justice problem, contributing factors to the problem, solutions and potential impacts on the solution to the problem. Thank you, Matthew Berryman Project Manager Investco Mathew.berryman@snh.edu

External Stakeholder To: Mjones@CSF.gov From: Matthew.berryman@snhu.edu Subject: Excessive petty theft across the State of California Mayor Jones, I am contacting you to let you know of a problem I see in the community contributing to many monthly white-collar crimes. I will tell you the contributing factors to the problem, the solution, and the potential impact of the solution. The criminal justice problem that I would like to talk about is the Police department non- arrest policy regarding shoplifting. This policy has increased theft in stores and homes in the community tenfold in the past 3 years. This non-arrest policy is forcing stores to close early, lock up products in place during operation hours, and lose profits. Some store chains are also contemplating leaving the city altogether due to SFPD not arresting or responding to merchandise theft in their stores. In California stealing anything under $950.00 is considered petty theft and if violated it carries a maximum fine of $1,000 and up to six months in jail. Your department has seemingly decided to not even respond to these calls and when they do, your officers are often too late to effect an arrest. The contributing factors to this problem are 1) California State law says that stealing merchandise with a value under $950.00 is a misdemeanor, which in turn means that police most likely will not even bother to respond or investigate.

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2) store employees are instructed not to intervene in stopping the criminal act by managers because they don’t want customers being hurt in the store because of the employee intervention. 3) This law has given an outright invitation to thieves to take what they want under $950.00 and due to no response by SFPD, violators have no fear of any consequences. How officers are supposed to conduct themselves while out on patrol and a clear and detailed outline of the A potential solution to the problem is to allocate officers throughout the city to be able to respond to this ever-growing disaster of theft in our city. Ensure officers are showing a presence among the community, to help deter this crime. Lastly, lobby state and local lawmakers to amend this law and help keep businesses from leaving our city. I believe if you can do these things, it can help lesson this activity. Thank you for taking the time to listen to the criminal justice problem, contributing factors to the problem, solutions and potential impacts on the solution to the problem. Thank you, Matthew Berryman Project Manager Investco Mathew.berryman@snh.edu

CJ485 MODULE 5

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