America’s incarceration rate is in decline

Incarceration isn't the same thing as crime. If the most populous state by far (California, almost 40m people in 2025) passes a law[0] that stealing things under $950 is a misdemeanor rather than a felony, then crime can continue while incarceration rates drop.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_47

It’s very hard to record crime rates in prisons.

Incarcerating people likely to commit crimes will mean their future crimes are much less likely to be reported.

This does not mean less crime, it means crime just isn’t being recorded.

Even the most rigorous studies account for crimes committed in prisons.

This is a very one sided presentation of the facts. This fact is generally used to suggest that theft is all a liberal blue state issue. The highest felony theft amount in the US is in red Texas and is $2500. Around 40 states have a *HIGHER* felony $ limit for theft than California. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense to not spend $10K+ to jail someone for stealing $500 of stuff. There are more cost effective ways to rehabilitate people. However, our society doesn't prioritize helping as much as punishing.

The whole hoopla around the felony status is just a proxy. when you commit a bunch of felonies there's all sorts of coded in law and process (sentencing guidelines) that apply (as well as KPIs, cops and prosecutors care about being able to say they put felons away) so you can't really be habitually felonious very much without winding up behind bars.

Below the felony threshold the system is far more free to let you go back out and keep doing what you're doing.

So the actual dollar threshold of felony theft is really just a crappy (because not all states go equally hard on non-felony crime) proxy for the rate of recidivism.

Yeah search for "California store owner kills" and "Texas store owner kills" and see the variety that comes up. In Texas the people are the militia and defend their property. That limit doesn't matter there.

Your own link points out that $950 is just taking into account inflation. When the law was created in 1982 the amount was $400, which was about $981 in 2014.

Inflation would eventually make stealing a candy bar a felony. Or we could updated the numbers periodically

Sounds like crime is real bad in Texas if citizens are having to take the law into their own hands.

My state has guns and a felony theft limit higher than Cali and we neither have store clerks regularly killing people nor businesses closing due to theft.