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Comment by ndiddy | Hacker News Reader

> $950 is a completely reasonable threshold for felony theft. Before this state-wide, not city-specific, reform was introduced California had the lowest threshold in the nation. It is still fairly low. In Texas, the threshold for what you inaccurately call "quasi-legal" is $2500.

I believe the difference is that district attorneys in Texas will actually prosecute misdemeanor theft, while this isn't true in the Bay Area.

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You believe it based on what? Hoover Institution press releases or some data you can actually share with us?

No data needed, the proof is in the pudding.

Not that you seem like you're likely to have your mind changed, but you can look at prosecuted misdemeanors on this website broken out by type. Misdemeanors prosecuted for burglary have been declining pretty quickly sine 2018. For theft, they only prosecuted 48 cases since 2011, I'm guessing there's been way more instances of theft beyond those 48 cases over 10+ years lol. Petty theft also has been on decline since 2018 for what it's worth.

https://www.sfdistrictattorney.org/policy/data-dashboards/

I don't think I am being unclear about my request. Your dashboard in no way shows or implies that a district attorney in Texas is more likely to prosecute a misdemeanor theft than the SF district attorney.

All your dashboard says to me is that the DA presses charges in the majority of misdemeanor petty theft arrests, and the trend in the absolute decline of such cases is driven by the lack of arrests, which declined more than half from 2011 to 2022, which is consistent with my point that it doesn't have anything to do with the DA, it is caused by poor police productivity.

https://media.giphy.com/media/Fml0fgAxVx1eM/giphy.gif

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