The ‘crime of poverty’ excuse is ruining NYC’s small businesses

Are you frustrated, as Project 1619 leader Nicole-Hannah-Jones, with the “humiliating” way drugstores “lock everything up”? Worried that Midtown merchants are using K-9 units to scare off thieves?

Horrified by the murder that followed the alleged theft of shrimp from the Fulton Fish Market? Saddened by the case of wine cellar salesman José Alba, who killed himself in self-defense in another incident that turned into a shoplifting?

Welcome to a progressive dystopia created by lefties who imagine that all shoplifting is a “poverty crime” and should therefore go unpunished. Thanks to New York’s criminal justice “reforms”, district attorneys find it next to impossible to put these criminals in jail, so the same small handful (but growing!) of suspects continue to re-offend.

As a result, shoplifting complaints across the city rose to more than 63,000 in 2022, up 45% from 2021 and nearly 275% from the first decade of the century. And more and more merchants don’t even file complaints as it seems pretty pointless.

Meanwhile, more brazen thieves opt for multi-million dollar robberies and other raids on luxury stores.

By the way, it’s not just about bail laws: other “reforms” oblige prosecutors to deal with endless paperwork on every case they are about to take to court, which leads to them abandoning some criminal offensesas well as most petty crimes.

Of course it is No put food on the table or any other “crime of poverty”: basically, we’re willing to bet the thieves’ profits go to buy drugs.

“People who say we criminalize the poor are wrong,” Mayor Eric Adams said last week. Instead, “poor and low-income New Yorkers are out of work because we’re losing these businesses in our city.”

Retailers that aren’t shutting down are doing everything from hiring private security patrols to deploying facial recognition technology, as well as all the locked-down toothpaste, deodorant and so on.

Meanwhile, the progressives in the Legislature are determined to reverse Gov. Kathy Hochul’s modest amendment to the no bail law by repealing the confusing requirement for judges to take “least restrictive” measures to secure a defendant’s return to court. Instead, they want to “reform” a little more by eliminating the last few mandatory minimum sentences for those who are still convicted.

On the left, New York’s only criminal problem is that some people end up behind bars. And they wonder why so many small businesses close in the areas they represent.