Hundreds of felons now clog Nevada prisons — serving sentences of one to 10 years on charges of \u201cfelony burglary\u201d — for offenses as \u201cminor\u201d as stealing food from Walmart or clothes from T.J. Maxx.<\/p>\n
A bill debated March 2 before the Assembly Judiciary Committee would make these non-violent, \u201ccategory B\u201d felons eligible for an earlier hearing with the Nevada Parole Board, potentially letting them out before they serve the minimum sentence and thus saving the state government hundreds of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to focus our resources on the serious crimes,\u201d testified Orrin Johnson of the Washoe County public defender office. \u201cWe don\u2019t want Nevada to be in the situation California was a few years ago, where they were literally letting violent offenders into the public because they didn\u2019t have room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under AB136, offenders with non-violent, non-sexual, non-weapons-related felonies such as burglary could earn credits for participating in rehabilitation or education programs, or by demonstrating good behavior. The credits would fast-track them to a hearing before the parole board.<\/p>\n
About 600 prisoners would be immediately eligible for a hearing, according to parole board Chairwoman Connie Bisbee. Currently, 61 percent of people who come before the parole board are granted early release.<\/p>\n
Public defender Johnson\u2019s examples of felony burglaries that carry at least a year in prison included a man who stole $7.18 of deli meat from a Walmart, a mentally ill man who set a small fire at a drugstore greeting card display, and a man who was caught stealing a flashlight and an iPod adapter out of a vehicle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is costing us a ton of money,\u201d Mr. Johnson said.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Johnson refers only to the government costs of incarceration, not to the costs borne by Nevada merchants who often fear they\u2019ve been declared \u201cfair game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brett Kandt of the Nevada attorney general\u2019s office asked legislators to \u201cremember the victims in this process.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVictims have certain rights,\u201d Kandt said. \u201cWe have an obligation … to inform victims about what a true minimum sentence could be.\u201d<\/p>\n
That makes the rights of crime victims sound like some minor technicality. In fact, unless one has owned or worked at a retail store, it\u2019s hard to imagine the frustration of finding that yet another pair of expensive boots have \u201cwalked out the door\u201d without payment, of finding more price tags ripped off stolen goods, wadded up and hidden in a corner.<\/p>\n
On casual consideration, jail time for a \u201cpetty\u201d theft sounds disproportionate. But the retailer understands that scores, even hundreds of thefts may occur before anyone is \u201ccaught red-handed.\u201d What\u2019s a business owner supposed to do? In our litigious age, the proprietor risks a lawsuit if he tackles a perpetrator as he or she skips out the door. Police are understandably reluctant to commit hours to stakeouts in pursuit of \u201cmere shoplifters,\u201d while the perception is widespread that if the laughing thief turns out to be a juvenile, it\u2019ll be \u201ccatch and release\u201d yet again.<\/p>\n
All this \u201cinventory shrinkage\u201d has to be passed along in consumer prices, making our remaining retail stores ever more vulnerable to online competitors with lower overhead. A widespread belief that such crimes are \u201cno big deal\u201d contributes to all those empty storefronts out there.<\/p>\n
Meantime, Nevada has plenty of charitable food banks and thrift stores — few if any thieves join in applying this \u201cdeath by a thousand cuts\u201d to local free enterprise because they\u2019re actually starving.<\/p>\n
Some do it for fun. And few thieves go to prison the first time they\u2019re caught — or even the third.<\/p>\n
Proponents of the measure assured legislators the proposed credits system was not a \u201cget out of jail free\u201d card; that the parole board would assess each case individually to determine whether the prisoner deserved an early release.<\/p>\n
Jail time is indeed expensive, and it\u2019s not clear the duration of a sentence really does much more to convince the criminal class of the error of their ways. At some point, for those who have adopted this as a way of life, we\u2019re going to have to consider exile.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, as the state looks for ways to trim costs, AB136 is certainly worth a look. But the committee should consider adding an amendment, stipulating legal immunity for storekeepers and their employees who use force to catch or stop such criminals in the act.<\/p>\n
Law-abiding merchants should not live in fear for their safety and their livelihood; thieves should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of felons now clog Nevada prisons — serving sentences of one to 10 years on charges of \u201cfelony burglary\u201d — for offenses as \u201cminor\u201d as stealing food from Walmart or clothes from T.J. Maxx. A bill debated March 2 before the Assembly Judiciary Committee would make these non-violent, \u201ccategory B\u201d felons eligible for an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[34,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nevada","category-private-property"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-by","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":717,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions\/717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}