No need to take my word or that of dozens of experts that threatening jail time for shoplifting does not deter thieves.
Take it from get-tough-on-crime lawmakers like council members Francoise Bergan and Danielle Jurinsky that threatening time in the hoosegow for shoplifting does next to nothing to prevent shoplifters from stealing from retailers.
“This ordinance is really to start standing up for business owners in this city and start talking about the victims, and addressing something to help the victims, and stop doing everything in our power to help the criminals,” Jurinsky said about how the jail threat would finally push back against retail thievery.
Actually, she didn’t say that last week when the conservatives on the city council voted, again, to “get tough” on shoplifters in Aurora and make them go to jail if they’re convicted of stealing more than $99 in merchandise. Jurinsky told fellow lawmakers and the public that conservatives were going to clean up this town of shoplifting mayhem in October 2022, which was the last time they mandated jail time for shoplifting, then handcuffing it to stealing more than $299 in merchandise.
And so you know what happened?
Yeah, pretty much nothing.
Oh, sure. There was plenty of tough talk from the city council dais.
“I think it does help to deter that behavior in our city,” Bergan said in 2022.
Better think again.
Aurora, like endless burgs where lawmakers get tough on crime, has been down this road before. And just like last week, city lawmakers had no reliable data or facts to prompt tripling down on this useless bill.
In 2022, even Mayor Mike Coffman chided the city attorney’s office for standing behind the bill with no facts, no details and no numbers about what the cost would be to taxpayers — if police and prosecutors were able to get shoplifters behind bars.
“All of the legislative bodies I’ve been in do estimates,” Coffman said 18 months ago.
Welcome to Aurora.
Pete Schulte of the City Attorney’s Office said in 2022 that the $299 plan “would have ‘some cost,’ but he confirmed the city had not prepared an estimate, mentioning that staffers have not been tracking which theft cases would be eligible for mandatory minimum sentences,” according to a Sentinel story in October 2022.
That was then. This is now.
Last week, city council progressives insisted on data upholding an assertion that the threat of jail time reduces the incidence of shoplifting when decades of studies consistently show so-called tough-on-crime bills don’t measurably move the needle.
Schulte referred to an unspecified “Department of Justice” report that examined how jail sentences had lowered rates of property crimes and said, “he wasn’t aware of any contradictory reports but that he could look into it,” according to a Feb. 29 Sentinel Colorado story.
“I guess I would have assumed that was part of preparation for this conversation,” Councilmember Crystal Murillo said.
She assumed wrong.
Perhaps there’s some other justice department Schulte is in contact with, but the U.S Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice has been consistent for decades about the effect of punishment on crime.
“Prisons are good for punishing criminals and keeping them off the street, but prison sentences (particularly long sentences) are unlikely to deter future crime. Prisons actually may have the opposite effect: Inmates learn more effective crime strategies from each other,” one report states.
So if the argument that Aurora’s getting tough almost two years ago just wasn’t tough enough, here’s the answer from real experts at the U.S. Department of Justice.
“Laws and policies designed to deter crime by focusing mainly on increasing the severity of punishment are ineffective partly because criminals know little about the sanctions for specific crimes.”
What these “go-directly-to-jail” stunts do for sure is provide a stage for political bluster, something that has also increased in Aurora over the last few years.
“This is our opportunity to crack down on it, to make sure that we don’t lose businesses and that we don’t lose businesses potentially coming here,” Councilmember Dustin Zvonek said last week, forgetting that the “opportunity” was almost two years ago, and it didn’t work.
Zvonek was the brainchild of another mandatory jail time scheme, that one was supposed to end car theft in Aurora.
The repeatedly disproved crime myth is just irresistible to conservative politicians.
“You know you shouldn’t steal. If you steal, there is a consequence. And when people throw off consequences, when they throw off restraint, then we have anarchy,” Republican Councilmember Stephanie Hancock said.
No doubt we’ll all be back in another couple of years to either lower the bar to stealing anything worth more than a buck or sentence thieves to life in prison.
No one disagrees that shoplifting is wrong. It’s a huge burden for all retailers, especially smaller businesses that can’t realistically absorb the loss or just pass it on to honest consumers.
But tough talk and useless schemes don’t keep people from stealing.
Even the Department of Justice, however, agrees there is something that does work.
“Police deter crime when they do things that strengthen a criminal’s perception of the certainty of being caught,” according to a 2016 DOJ analysis. “Strategies that use the police as ‘sentinels,’ such as hot spots policing, are particularly effective. A criminal’s behavior is more likely to be influenced by seeing a police officer with handcuffs and a radio than by a new law increasing penalties.”
If council conservatives really mean what they say about really caring about businesses, get cops out of their cars and in the stores. Subsidize the cost of hiring off-duty cops in uniform to wander around stores and really prevent theft.
That’s going to cost some serious cash.
Maybe a cheaper option would be forcing shoplifting convicts to watch televised city council meetings, one hour for every dollar of merchandise stolen.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
Whether punishment can stop or deter crime may not be the issue. Can it push the criminal behavior to neighboring jurisdictions may be the question? Of course if it can, and if it proves to do so those neighboring jurisdictions may want to push back.
I am afraid that Dave Perry has missed an important point. It is the certainty of being caught and punished that works. It is not the severity of the punishment for the most part. In this case, there was no certainty of any punishment. The establishment of some certainty in punishment is what counts. These are not severe punishments. They are certain punishments. Now, we need to establish a certainty of getting arrested. We need to encourage businesses to use security that stops people. We need to change the ridiculous police reform bill passed by Leslie Herrod and Rhonda Fields in order to encourage officers to actually engage with thieves who resist being stopped. Right now, it is more dangerous for the officers than it is for the thieves.
Well-spoken, Mr. Black. Thanks for the brevity.
The issues that drive crime in our society are so deep that they cannot be solved by a city council or a newspaper editor’s opinion column. Start looking at causes first, then come up with solutions that can viably work.
Let’s get back to allowing schools to rightly discipline unruly students.
Let’s get parents to invest in their kids education instead of using the school system as a glorified baby-sitting service.
Let’s stop whining and moaning about how unfair life is for the have-nots.
Take ownership and responsibility of yourself and your family, and the cycle can be broken.
It doesn’t happen overnight, but we’ve become an instant gratification society. Good luck!
The start is in the home, but its certainly not the end.
Well said for the most part. It started with my generation when we started telling everyone how special they were. It now has become a complete lack of personal accountability. We are all so special now that no one else matters. We have no obligation to be respectful since we are so special. If anything doesn’t go right, it can’t be our fault…so we are a victim. We have become a nation of whiners. The sad part is that if you teach your child all of the right things in life, they may be out of step with their peers and our society. When you teach hard work, honesty, and respect for others, they can see that those values are no longer cherished by our society. We are willing to accept dishonesty and self serving attitudes from our leaders. Theft and cheating are no longer a big deal and not the fault of the perpetrators. We are in dire need of a reboot. We need leaders with the courage to stand up for basic values. Those leaders must show that they live those values. I don’t see anyone yet who fills those requirements.
City council can’t legislate good parenting, good morals and change the entire world. The problem is happening NOW, and they have the duty to address it NOW. All the fluff about, “We need to give criminals hugs and understand their issues and that’ll turn them into good people and fix the problem” is CRAP. And I’m a liberal Democrat, but one who knows that we are too lenient on crime in this country. Put police officers in every store?? Really, Dave Perry? What a ludicrous notion. Even if Aurora didn’t have a deficit of officers, that would still be stupid. And also stupid is telling criminals they can steal $98 worth of someone else’s property and elude jail time. A little kid pocketing a candy bar or, as in Loveland, an elderly person with dementia forgetting to pay for something should be handled with common sense on a case by case basis but someone who deliberately walks into a store with the intent to grab what they feel entitled to and then run out the door is committing a punishable crime whether it’s $10 or $100 or $1000. I don’t care what it costs to jail them. I think City Council should ask Aurorans how they want their money spent. Ask them if they think jailing criminals is a good use of their tax dollars. I’m sick of the crime in Aurora, and in Colorado, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. Crime is eroding our quality of life and it’s being allowed to flourish. It makes sense to me that if someone steals $25 worth of stuff and they get away with it, next time it’ll be $50. And if they get away with that, next time it’s a car or a home invasion. The nonsense about jail not deterring shoplifting sounds like it comes from the Shoplifting Lobby. What crime DOES jail deter? Murders still happen, even though punishment is life in prison. Rapists and child molesters still prey on us even though those punishments are significant–sometimes. Burglars still burglarize, car thiefs still steal cars, drunk drivers still kill people, men still beat their wives, even though those crimes have consequences. And people would still steal if the punishment was more severe. But letting people steal has consequences for all of us. It’s not a minor thing. And justifying inaction on the subject by saying that we can’t enact tougher penalties because the criminals won’t know about them is really the dumbest part of this article. First of all, criminals associate with criminals–they talk to each other. I worked with the offender population intimately for many years as a social worker. If one of them spent 3 nights in jail for shoplifting, their associates would know it. They’re not oblivious. But that shouldn’t be a consideration for enacting laws, for heavens sake. What happened to, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse”? I can tell you that they’re aware of what they can get away with now. They know that theft is rarely a punishable offense. They’re acutely aware, actually. But a trip to jail and an appearance before a judge would clue them in for sure, wouldn’t it? There are lots of excuses to not address the issues. Nothing will be effective 100% of the time. But doing nothing is exactly what criminals want us to do. I don’t agree with Francoise Bergan on ANYTHING (except taking cars away from street racers) but I have to say that at least she’s trying to address the issue. Now. It would behoove the Democrats on the Council to get real about real issues and face the fact that no city exists without capitalism. Aurora needs its retailers. I know that’s not cool and progressive but it’s true. Doing nothing deters nothing. Jail time for shoplifters won’t stop all of them but nothing will stop all of them. Still, a couple nights in jail might redirect somebody’s life before it goes off the rails. I’ve had offenders tell me that jail was the best thing that ever happened to them. Jail can connect people to services they can’t access on their own sometimes. I’ve witnessed it being a deterrent over and over again. I’ve seen it fail in that mission, too. Yep, it’s expensive! But the cost of crime is even more so.
Thank you, Ann, for your informed, reasoned, and passionate comment. It addresses all the nonsensical talking points of those opposed to this law. I hope everyone reads your comment from beginning to end.
Well said.
Exactly!
Cornish & Clark (1987)
State that criminal behaviour is the result of a rational thinking process, criminals have reasoned and thought about their crimes prior to committing them, often making a cost-benefit analysis to determine if the crime is worth committing based upon the potential rewards and the risks involved.
“‘What these go-directly-to-jail stunts do is provide a stage for political bluster, something that has also increased in Aurora over the last few years’”
Something that can be directly attributed to Perry’s allies in the Emerge/DSA claque when they got seats on the city council in that same time frame.
Our family is forever grateful for the intervention of the police when our teenage daughter was charged with underage drinking. There was no mandatory jail time for my daughter’s crime; instead there were several options. We chose the pathway that required an individual counseling session for our daughter (expensive!) and four family Saturday morning group classes (time-consuming!) for underage drinkers and their parents. The whole long process was painful and eye-opening and frustrating and effective in changing her behavior and our parenting. At the successful completion of the program our daughter’s record was erased. We became closer as a family and she grew up to be an amazing young adult.
I do wish that this shoplifting law had several pathways to justice…especially for minors. But, without a doubt, legal consequences can help change troublesome behaviors and also strengthen our families and our neighborhoods.
As mentioned before, this ordinance does not apply to juveniles, so there are different paths for them. I’m sure you realize local gangs are savvy enough to exploit juveniles for this very reason; I would not be surprised if organized theft rings employed a similar strategy in recruiting their “boosters” for the stolen items they resell.
The privilege fairly reeks from these policies. People with little to no knowledge, let alone expertise, believe they are virtuous enough, and smart enough, to create laws with no empirical research, no studies, and no regard for the consequences.
When this fails to work, as it will, these idiots will respond by upping the punishment ever higher instead of asking why this is happening. Right now, municipalities generally don’t report violations of local ordinances to the NCIC national crime system. I know of no municipality that does (or even could). But sheriffs are responsible for the safety of their jails, and the people that jails house. That means fingerprinting, which can lead to eventual reporting to the national databases, lumping such offenders with serious offenders. In turn, that shuts people out of jobs, out of financial assistance, out of housing. And onto the streets, where they can receive an education in real crime, and how to commit it.
Zero tolerance leads to nothing good at this level. But if the council really wants to go this route, then they should do so based on valid empirical research showing zero tolerance’s outcomes, good and bad. They should make a decision on facts, not on feel-good slogans about “crime stopping”.
Lol…you are incorrect! The city does indeed report municipal crimes to the FBI through NIBRS. Not every municipal crime falls within the NIBRS reporting system, but crimes like theft & auto theft do fall within the reporting system. NCIC has nothing to do with reporting crime to the FBI for statistical purposes. Sounds like you have sympathy for criminals rather than victims of crime. You also have no idea what you are talking about.
Well said. Good to hear from you
That’s funny, since every court clerk has told me that they don’t report municipal convictions. And after years as a prosecutor, I can tell you I never once saw a report of a municipal conviction reported on anyone’s criminal history, whether NCIC or state.
But please enlighten me – your experience with the justice system would be exactly what? I spent 30 years in it. You?
No, you and your side simply want to maintain the status quo, where the businesses you detest get ripped off with impunity, then throw a conniption fit when the people and community that suffers from it have the audacity to complain and want it to stop, as you believe they are on the side of the Oppressor in your dumb marxist false duality.
Also, “privilege” is just a pejorative used by your side as a thought-stopping mechanism to prevent your allies from victimizing people you can’t stand.
I’m sorry – do you know me? And what is my “side”?
Your side also likes to play dumb when their dialectic is called out.
But everyone can see it plain as day, such as when you complain about white people living in Douglas County, or argued that a state with a Democratic governor and two Democratic Senators when you moved here in the 70s was a “red” state, or try to state that your thieving allies shouldn’t suffer the consequences of their actions.
Stop talking to the voices in your head and open your eyes to facts.
Stop deflecting from your side’s social maladaption and your own rad-left question-begging.
I used to recall signs in stores saying, “Shoplifters will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” This at least is a step in that direction.
As usual, Perry is wrong again. Aurora previously has such a policy and it was effective. How do I know? Because I was an officer in Aurora & worked regularly at the Aurora Mall in an off-duty capacity. The mall is a major target for shoplifters, especially those who regularly engage in shoplifting. When Aurora went with this policy some years ago we eventually saw shoplifting begin to wane. There was a similar policy in place at one time for auto thieves. Once those thieves were targeted by the courts & a special police unit, auto theft declined substantially. Partly because offenders were in jail. Offenders in jail have a difficult time committing more crimes. Perry, who somehow considers himself a law enforcement expert from the safety of his desk, should just come out & say that he doesn’t want criminals to be held accountable.
Its always handy to know the exact science for social behavior so we can keep the lid on society. No matter how data you want to use in should or should not the city accept shoplifting as the new norm, thieving is unacceptable. What’s discouraging about this ordinance is the city has accepted and put itself in the domain these businesses should be taking on a more proactive position themselves. These business, some large ones, the Home Depots, Lowes, King Soopers, these high paid upper management leaders running these companies have regrettably as we watch intentionally taken the low road of a risk-avoidance policy to let shoplifters- lift. Now the city is the bad guy according to Perry. Taxpayers are otherwise now to pick up the slack the companies have refused or made little effort to help themselves with the situation. Then as we are seeing more and more of these losses become to great, the stores simply shut down.