Harmless Property Offenders

In a more honest and less “sensitive” era we called them “thieves.” The contagion of smash-and-grab crimes spread beyond San Francisco into the south and east parts of the SF Bay Area yesterday. See this article at National Review.

The people who have been selling the nation on diluted criminal justice use the euphemism “property offender” to imply that the people who take or destroy things are harmless and need not be punished to any significant degree. That is a dangerous fallacy. Thievery cuts at the heart of civilized society. If stores are regularly looted, there will be no stores. Can we just shop online then? Not if “porch piracy” is rampant.

Property crimes matter. We need to rebuild a national culture of respect for the law and for the rights of others. Making crime not pay is an essential component of that reconstruction.