>>514018294
In the 90s, "Three strikes and you're out" laws swept across the country. The public was tired of career criminals getting short sentences, often "time served", and then immediately doing more crime as soon as they got out. Some criminals had hundreds or even thousands of arrests, each resulting in no more than a few days in the county or city jail.
The three strikes laws meant if a criminal was convicted of certain crimes three times, they'd go to the state prison for an extended period. The prison population rapidly expanded, especially the black population. Costs rose, overcrowding was common, riots happened as there weren't enough staff to maintain control. Leftists started agitating for reduced sentencing, often claiming someone was sentenced to twenty years for forgetting to pay for a pack of bubblegum. What they usually left out was the two violent convictions they previously had and that "forgetting to pay" meant beating the store clerk.
So came the "reforms", going to back to light sentences for most everything other than capital offenses. Tens of thousands serving long sentences due to three strike laws were released and started offending again. Property crimes were only reported if there was a need to file an insurance claim. Stores stopped bothering with anything under $500 or so. In some places, laws were passed to decriminalize many of these "small" crimes, which made the crime rate drop as those crimes were no longer crimes.
And that's where we are now. Unwilling to lock up career criminals until they kill someone because it costs a lot of money to do and leftists use it build their powerbase with useful idiots.