The Detroit Free Press reports that Wayne County prosecutors may not even bother with “low-priority” crimes like breaking and entering, citing budget shortfalls.
In Mecklenburg County we run a catch-and-release program for small time hoods and sit silently as steps are taken to weaken the state’s habitual felon law. Steps which would make it even more likely that criminals engaged in property crime skate away from punishment.
As Tara Servatius noted:
The penalty for most daytime break-ins is probation. Criminals know they can be convicted of breaking into homes at least four times without ever serving a day in prison, which has lead to a free-for-all on North Carolinians’ property.
If anything, we need to toughen our breaking and entering laws. Currently, the only way for a prosecutor to put a repeat house-breaker away for a significant amount of time is to use the habitual felon law. It’s frightening to ponder how much our already atrocious home break-in/burglary rate would rise if certain legislators and the state’s newspapers succeed in gutting the habitual felon law.
More insidious is the buried assumption that property crimes are a minor infraction of our social compact, provided no one gets hurt. The Left has chipped away at the legitimacy of private property to the point where ad hoc extra-legal redistribution of wealth often draws no more state interest than jaywalking. Add in a dollop of Southern white liberal guilt and we are on the way to de-criminalizing breaking-and-entering.
At least in Detroit they are upfront about reworking the fundamentals of civil society. Residents of Wayne County are on notice that they are on their own when it comes to protecting their property. Mecklenburgers are in the same boat, but do not know it.
