Treating petty thefts as felonies costs money, brands people for life

Steal a $450 Samsung smartphone from a Walmart in Mobile, Alabama, and you’re facing a misdemeanor charge that’ll get you no more than a year in the county jail.

Steal that same smartphone from a Walmart about 60 miles east in Pensacola, and you might get charged with a felony that carries up to five years in state prison, and consequences that could haunt you for a lifetime.

Florida is — once again — stuck in the past and badly out of step with other states, in this case when determining whether theft is a felony or a misdemeanor.

In Florida, If the stolen property is worth more than $300, that’s a felony. In every other state except one — New Jersey — you have to steal something worth more than $500 to get charged with a felony. Anything less is a misdemeanor.

Even in Texas — Texas — you have to steal something worth more than $1,500 to get charged with a felony.

According to a study by Pew Charitable Trusts, 39 states covering a wide political and geographic spectrum have raised the threshold for theft to trigger a felony since 2000.

Florida is not among them. Our state’s $300 level has been in place since 1986, when smartphones didn’t even exist.

Time in jail isn’t the only potential consequence of a felony charge vs. a misdemeanor charge.

Convicted felons can’t own firearms, serve on juries or hold public office unless their rights are restored by the state. They may be barred from serving in the military or getting a security clearance. They’ll likely find it harder to get a job or find housing. They may have to wait years before getting a professional license from the state. Non-citizens are more likely to be deported.

All because someone stole a smartphone.

Even if you don’t care about the human consequences of a felony conviction, consider the economics of putting people in prison. Florida’s Department of Corrections budget is $2.4 billion this year. Part of that pays to house, feed, treat and guard nearly 100,000 inmates in state prisons. That’s taxpayer money not getting spend on roads, schools or health care.

Florida is one of a dozen states, mostly in the South, that in 2016 surpassed the national average for the rate of imprisonment: 481 in Florida people per 100,000 residents. Another mottled feather in the state’s cap.

A couple of Gulf Coast legislators are leading the charge to (finally) bring some sanity to this state’s felony theft law, and maybe do something about reducing the prison population.

Rep. Byron Donalds of Naples, and Sen. Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg want to raise the bar for felony theft. Donalds wants to make stealing something worth $1,000 a felony. Brandes wants to set that number at $1,500. Either way, it makes a lot more sense than making a $300 theft a felony.

Standing in the way is the powerful Florida Retail Federation, which wants to keep Florida’s absurd felony theft law as is. They think it deters criminal gangs or something like that.

Their Inspector Javert-like attitude conflicts with crime statistics. Even as dozens of states raised the threshold for felony theft, the rate of larceny and theft in the United States has dropped by about 20 percent in the past decade, according to FBI statistics. If the Retail Federation’s theory was correct — that higher thresholds embolden crooks — the theft rate should be going up.

After South Carolina raised its felony theft threshold from $1,000 to $2,000 in 2010, Pew found the change did nothing to interrupt the state’s declining crime rates, including property crimes.

In other words, the Retail Federation’s warnings are a smokescreen.

It sometimes seems this state is stuck in a time warp. While other states have implemented criminal justice reforms, with good results, Florida dithers, frightened of being seen as soft on crime and bullied by special interest groups.

And yet, one of the leading advocates for reform is the Charles Koch Institute, founded by and named for one of the nation’s leading conservative figures. The institute has decried the practice of sending people to prison for what it calls “lowlevel, nonviolent crimes.”

If reform is palatable to someone with Charles Koch’s political view, why does it so frighten Florida’s Legislature?

Raising the felony theft threshold is just part of a larger, more ambitious package of reforms the state needs to pass.

But this piece is so easy. Why not take this one small step?

It sometimes seems this state is stuck in a time warp. While other states have implemented criminal justice reforms, with good results, Florida dithers, frightened of being seen as soft on crime and bullied by special interest groups.