Prosecutions are the consequences needed. The Chicago Tribune reported in a story released this morning, the current State's Attorney's office "dropped all charges
against 29.9% of felony defendants, a dramatic increase over her predecessor, the Tribune found. For the last three years of Anita Alvarez’s tenure, the rate was 19.4%."
Even more telling are the cases filed.
A chart of the types of felony casesprosecuted shows that for felony retail theft, Alvarez filed cases against 8151 defendants in the last three years of her tenure, and dropped 25% of cases, while Kim Foxx filed cases against only 3168 defendants in the first three years of her tenure, and dropped 29.5%. This means that for the last three years only 2,234 cases of felony retail theft have been prosecuted.
This is expected. The State's Attorney expressly
said in 2016 that retail theft should not be a felony, and that
"retail theft charges should remain a misdemeanor unless the value of the stolen goods exceeds $1,000 or the alleged shoplifter has 10 prior . . . convictions — a significant leap from the current standard of a single felony conviction."
Given that a single cell phone can be worth over $1,000, that should not be a difficult threshold to hit today.
Another shocking statistic is the crime of "escape." According to today's Tribune story, a felony charge of escape occurs when when a defendant cuts off electronic monitoring equipment. When electronic monitoring is ordered as a condition of bail, it is the legal equivalent of being in custody. The Tribune's analysis shows that the current State's Attorney dropped charges in 34.3% of the 1252 cases of escape charges, which the prior State's Attorney dropped only 4% of 1337 cases. This is a disturbing statistic, in light of the controversy over the effectiveness of bail reform, and stories that
hundreds of defendants on electronic monitoring are missing.
