@D–
Your second reading is correct. I oppose drug prohibition, bans on prostitution (between competent consenting adults), obscenity laws, etc. I applaud recent moves to end marijuana prohibition. Shoplifting, however, is a “real crime” with a victim.

As for parking, some restrictions are reasonable, eg obstructing a hydrant or a busy crosswalk, double-parking on a busy street where it causes problems, blocking driveways, etc. Note that there are, or potentially can be, victims in each case.

Pardon, I may have misread Hugo’s comment. So are you saying abolish parking violations but still prosecute shoplifting? My apologies.

Which of these offenses are victimless? Are you still talking about theft? Everyone else is talking about theft. Theft has easily identified victims. How ’bout you come try to steal from me and we’ll see how that goes.

-Piggybacking on No Name Guy’s quote from Creuzot, “What we are focusing on is not on processing cases, it’s on reducing recidivism…” and then John Ross: “As Rollins says (see interview in link at bottom), someone who has no criminal history who steals diapers is very likely deserving of mercy. Repeat offenders not so much — and they will be prosecuted.”

If thieves are never charged, they will not have a criminal record, so there is no metric for recidivism, so they are always deserving of mercy. The logical conclusion is that there will never be prosecutions.

Can mercy rob justice? No. If you feel like being merciful, then you must pay the victims for the perp’s damages. Just put out an announcement that anyone caught shoplifting should call you and you will pay for the goods. You can keep your own records on recidivism if you want. But that is not kindness.

As for me, I will do the kind thing. I will prosecute the thief, let them pay their debt to society. Some do learn, and I gladly welcome them back. Others never do. If they never learn to keep their hands off my property, my wife, and my life, then they are not worthy to join the rest of society.

I see this not ending well when someone picks the wrong person to steal from.

The idea is to shift scarce law enforcement resources

Unless the stores get so frustrated due to the lack of prosecution that they stop calling the police altogether, “law enforcement resources” are still used.

Also, how will you ever know whether something is “first time shoplifting” if you never prosecute the first time? We’re just trusting the DA’s office to determine whether someone was guilty the first time they were charged, without a trial?

Well, traffic and parking along with a healthy civil forfeiture program pay for all that law enforcement…
My daughter’s comment was most shoplifters stopped with diapers / formula / etc always seemed to manage to include cosmetics and other such items in their attempted haul…

As Rollins says, Boston’s conviction rate for attempted murder is truly abysmal — which surely affects public safety more than first-time shoplifting.

On the other hand, murder cases require very different levels of time and effort from detectives, prosecutors, judges, etc. than shoplifters do. I doubt the Dallas and Boston homicide detectives are being held back by all the shoplifters they have to investigate, and the beat cops picking up shoplifters probably aren’t the major force behind murder investigations. Similarly, prosecuting shoplifting is generally on the order of traffic court. If they’re still using resources prosecuting minor traffic offenses, the whole idea falls a little flat.