By "reformers" I am mainly referring to activist elected DA's that go in publicly declaring entire segments of the criminal code void by saying they will not peruse any cases for violations of those acts. Shoplifting is one such law they often ignore, along with other non-violent theft (like breaking into cars)

"entire segments of the criminal code void by saying they will not peruse any cases for violations of those acts. Shoplifting is one such law they often ignore"

Are you exagerating? I don't think anyone anywhere has completely stopped prosecuting shoplifting. Or if they have somewhere, please cite specifically, either with numbers, or with enough context so we can try to find some.

There are some places where shoplifting prosecutions declined due to decisions by prosecutors, for sure. That is not at all the same thing as "declaring entire segments of the criminal code void".

When we can't talk about what's really going on without exagerating it into the most absolute versions we can imagine while speaking in vague generalities that can't be researched... we can't easily get at what's actually going on instead of our imaginations.

>>I don't think anyone anywhere has completely stopped prosecuting shoplifting.

San Francisco where functionally anything under $900 is not prosecuted. That is the big one

NYC has also had its fair share of this.

>>When we can't talk about what's really going on without exagerating

It is not really exaggerating, I am not talking about individual cases where an Assistant DA looks at a case in their professional review of choose not to prosecute because of some actual legal reason, or because of some deal or something else

I am talking about wide scale refusal at an entire district level to refuse entire classes of cases

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/us/alvin-bragg-manhattan-dist...

https://www.theblaze.com/news/dallas-da-wont-prosecute-crime...

https://www.hoover.org/research/why-shoplifting-now-de-facto...

San Francisco under Chesa Boudin (who is now gone) presumably?

My first google suggests that shoplifting prosecutions in San Francisco were reduced but not eliminated, and that "organized retail theft" prosecutions (which I see people complaining about on HN a lot) were actually not diminished at all.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/archives/data-shows-chesa-boudin-...

I don't understand how you can claim it was not an exageration to say:

"[declare] entire segments of the criminal code void by saying they will not peruse any cases for violations of those acts. Shoplifting is one such law they often ignore"

Was I wrong to read that thinking it meant you were claiming there were zero prosecutions of shoplifting? That's not what those words mean? What "segment of the criminal code" did you mean specifically had been "void", what am I misunderstanding?

No criminal acts have ever been universally prosecuted and punished, ever.

But ok, correcting my reading of your statement, I now understand that your argumentis in fact that the "#1 action" of "reformers" (by which you mean elected district attorney's only, not other kinds of reformers), has been to reduce prosecutions for shoplifting (I'm not sure what a DA can "reform" except what gets prosecuted how!), and that you think that reducing prosecutions for shoplifting will necessarily lead to unaccountable private security.

That's really what you think we should have understood your original statement as? It sounds a lot less apocalyptic or sweeping of a theory this way. But ok, that's what you're saying. OK, cool, interesting theory...

I can't speak to the other examples, but in the case of Boudin it's not that he didn't prosecute, it's that he and his office refused to seek jail time for non-violent property offenses, except (in principal) the leaders of organized criminal rings. Instead such offenders were placed into diversion programs and then promptly forgotten about. Boudin very much liked to tout that his prosecution rates were just as high as his predecessor, and official statistics highlighted the high successful diversion rate--where "success" was extremely dubious, and probably the area where Boudin's office skirted with malfeasance. (The desire to keep a high diversion success rate explains well some high profile instances where the DAs office chose to rely on other state agencies--like a parole office--to take action rather than create a new case file. Diversion also often includes expungement, so in theory the DAs office could have arranged to make it impossible for a diversion to fail by simply choosing not to look into expunged records, which the DA usually can do if they choose, but can just as easily choose not to do if they want plausible deniability.)

This is also a big reason why the police were releasing burglars almost immediately upon booking--if the DA won't seek jail time as a matter of policy, then it's patently unjust (per SF policy even before Boudin) to keep someone in jail until arraignment.

Of course, if there's no threat of jail time, and someone has no assets or income above living wages which a court could seize for restitution, then there's absolutely nothing stopping an incorrigible offender.

These nuances allowed Boudin defenders to claim his opponents were lying or at least wrong about Boudin's policies. And technically that's true--hyperbole got the better of his opponents, who seemed unwilling or incapable of making these distinctions. I fully expect Boudin or a Boudin acolyte to run again in the future and to dissemble and defend these policies. The reality is unfortunately too difficult to properly explain through sound bites, while the abridged version can make these policies seem more reasonable than they actually are.