What Happens When the System™ Actually Enforces the Law?

With luck, the bad guys will get the message, and alter their behavior. Felony shoplifting cases surge 154% under new state's attorney - CWB Chicago

Crimesha, AKA former Cook County State's Attorney Kim Fox, lost the recent election to someone who actually intends to prosecute crime.

Shoplifters in Chicago are being slapped with felony charges 154% more often under Cook County’s new state’s attorney than they were under Kim Foxx’s administration.

Retired justice Eileen O’Neill Burke took office on December 2 and immediately followed through on her campaign promise to adhere to state law by pursuing felonies against people who shoplift merchandise worth more than $300. Foxx ordered prosecutors to withhold felony charges unless the value exceeded $1,000 or the accused shoplifter had ten or more previous convictions.

The result of that $1000 edict was to decimate retail in the city.

“The felony retail theft statute says that the value of goods has to be $300 or above to be a felony,” O’Neill Burke said during a February town hall covered by Nadig Newspapers. “You can clear out several aisles at Walgreens before you get to $1,000. The ramification of this policy is that retail stores have closed all over the city because of theft.”

It might be too little, too late, but at least they are trying to turn things around.