In retail stores, I’ve seen it with my own eyes all across the Bay Area.
It’s gone from occasional, ‘tries to hide it’ shoplifting to brazen ‘runs off with a shopping cart full of tools/baby food/electronics in the daylight daily’ in a handful of years.
Stores are changing their display practices to try to compensate (locking up anything over a certain dollar threshold), but it’s easy to bypass. Last week when talking to one guy (Home Depot in Santa Clara) while buying a power tool, he said they’d had over $14k taken in the last few weeks alone from that store. I’ve seen folks do the runs myself while picking up Electronics too. The staff just sighs, takes a note, and continues on with their day.
Notably, it seems like it’s co-ordinated. when talking to the staff, they say it’s a different person each time, but very frequent now. shrug
As long as we're using dueling anecdotes, I've lived in SF 20+ years, and as far as I can tell crime levels are about the same.
Is it possible that criminal groups are doing some organized shoplifting? I'd believe it. But this may be just a change in method for existing criminals. Or it may be that we're hearing about it more because it's a topic that has gained sudden media interest. In any case, that cuts against your theory that the cops don't care, because doing it in bulk or in an organized fashion will turn it from a misdemeanor to a felony, making cops much more interested. And indeed, SF just announced results from exactly that kind of operation: https://sfist.com/2022/12/16/sfpd-touts-60-arrests-in-new-re...
It makes it harder to keep them off the street, which makes departments deprioritize arresting people for those crimes. Same as 5150 for mentally unstable folks on the street. When it’s clearly a revolving door, folks stop trying to spend so much effort pushing people into it.
It’s often part of the same platform too - at least for Chesa Boudin.
It doesn't "make" departments deprioritize that. They choose it.
Note also you are once again conflating pre-trial detainment with post-trial punishment. People presumed innocent should not be generally kept off the streets.
Even given the (dubious and ineffective) goal of keeping people off the streets, a removal of cash bail would in theory make them work even harder, so that a) true repeat offenders would receive the sort of escalating penalties that would put them away for a long time, and b) people failing to abide by the terms of their non-cash bail would not be allowed back out again. So the end of cash bail should make them more dedicated.
But Boudin is material here. SF cops sandbagged on doing their job because they didn't like him. He was foursquare for a modicum police accountability and they hated that. And if you'd like to post nominal facts about the Boudin recall, please don't use ones from a publication wholly funded by one of the people who paid for the Boudin recall.
The retail stores are less able to handle shrink than they could before because they have serious competition from online sales.
They have tighter margins due to competition, so they lock stuff down more, leading to a much worse shipping experience, leading to more people shopping online. It's a death spiral.
There's certainly more reporting of shoplifting in SF in the last couple years, but it's only a part of the story, and evidently not a general trend, or we would see it in higher level statistics.
Covid was the biggest bail reform experiment in history. Typically for any non-violent crime in the US, people get ROR'd (released on own recognizance) so long as they don't have any outstanding warrants. Bail is for people that have a history of skipping court (outstanding warrants). During Covid, everyone got ROR'd regardless of outstanding warrants, because getting caught shoplifting and the cops find 3 points of meth in their pocket shouldn't be death sentence. Normally that type of person would be given a $5000 bail if this was their second time getting caught. If they were unemployed, they would dry out in jail and hopefully come out the other side on a better path. During covid everyone was released on zero bail. Homelessness and crime spiked across the US.
There are places that think it is a good idea to make covid bail policies permanent. The experiment is running now.
It’s gotten to the point that non-felony offenses mostly just get ignored by police, and theft is skyrocketing everywhere.