{"id":179232,"date":"2025-08-27T08:18:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T08:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/179232\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T08:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T08:18:12","slug":"nycs-small-gains-against-shoplifting-show-that-gov-hochul-hasnt-done-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/179232\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC’s small gains against shoplifting show that Gov. Hochul hasn’t done ENOUGH"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Kathy Hochul took a victory lap Tuesday, congratulating herself for cracking the code on preventing retail theft: It turns out that arresting shoplifters and prosecuting them <\/a>actually deters pilfering.<\/p>\n

Of course, the gov also credited other measures she got passed as part of this year\u2019s budget \u2014 but the grim fact is that retail theft is still far higher than before the state\u2019s 2019 criminal-justice \u201creforms,\u201d which remain largely intact despite Hochul\u2019s tinkering. <\/p>\n

Yes, she made things a bit better this year: By all means, assaulting a retail worker should be a felony\u00a0\u2014 yet assaulting anyone should be, no?<\/p>\n

Similarly, it was progress to let prosecutors combine the value of stolen goods when they file felony larceny charges, thereby closing the loophole that let thieves skate on misdemeanors if they stole less than $1,000 worth of merch<\/a>.\u00a0But DAs\u2019 hands shouldn\u2019t have been tied in the first place.<\/p>\n

Above all: Hochul made merry at a Harlem press conference Tuesday because shoplifting in New York City is down 12% since last year \u2014 when it shot up 64% from 2019 to 2023.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re still a long way from what used to be normal, and some of the changes for the worse help explain the drop in retail theft.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n

Drug stores haven\u2019t been taking down the locked plastic doors that make buying shampoo feel like visiting a prisoner in supermax detention, and shops of all kinds have added security and otherwise limited customer access. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Plus, a lot of the stores hit hardest by the shoplifting plague have up and closed. You can\u2019t steal from a store that isn\u2019t there anymore.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the progressives\u2019 experiment in law non-enforcement is far from over: The criminal-justice deformers prevent more than modest tweaks to their handiwork, and keep pushing new \u201creforms\u201d on other fronts.<\/p>\n

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Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Democratic Socialists want to \u201cend all misdemeanor offenses<\/a>,\u201d which are part of the \u201ccriminalization of working-class survival.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke for the whole movement<\/a> when she explained that \u201cscared\u201d people \u201ceither need to shoplift some bread or go hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, though it may surprise the \u201claws create crime\u201d brigade, retail thieves aren\u2019t shoplifting baby formula and deodorant because they desperately need those items to \u201csurvive\u201d: They rob to re-sell, often to then buy drugs. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Hochul keeps taking baby steps in the right direction, but that\u2019s not remotely enough. <\/p>\n

New York needs to end, not limit, the left\u2019s delusional justice experiments.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Kathy Hochul took a victory lap Tuesday, congratulating herself for cracking the code on preventing retail theft:…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":179233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[11338,5229,50145,4691,5371,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,1269,10883,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-179232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-alexandria-ocasio-cortez","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-criminal-justice-reforms","11":"tag-editorial","12":"tag-kathy-hochul","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-opinion","20":"tag-shoplifting","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115099749866708129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}