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Crime Waves blog
A Thought Experiment Where Shoplifting Is Enforced Like a Parking Ticket A labelled satire about a fictional city that hunts shoplifters as it hunts expired meters, and what enforcement reveals about what a government values. They Say Shoplifting Is a Victimless Crime, So Ask the Clerk and the Block The claim that shoplifting only hurts insured corporations collapses once you follow who actually pays. Organized Retail Theft Is a Business Model, Not a Cry for Help Theft rings run on boosters, fences and online resale, so prosecutors should treat them as the commercial enterprises they are. What California's Proposition 47 Changed and What Proposition 36 Undid Prop 47 made many thefts and drug possession offences misdemeanors in 2014. Prop 36 restored felony options for repeat offenders in 2024. Seven Things Crime Statistics Cannot Tell You, and Two Things They Can Both parties misuse crime data. Test seven popular claims against how the numbers are built, and learn the two kinds of evidence that hold up best. The Crime Survey That Asks Victims Instead of Asking Police Departments The National Crime Victimization Survey counts crimes that never reach police. Here is how it works, what it cannot measure, and how to cite it fairly. Why the FBI's Switch to NIBRS Made National Crime Numbers Harder to Read The FBI moved to incident-based reporting in 2021 and left gaps in the national crime picture. Here is why, how they were patched, and how to compare years.