Is the California Legislature Encouraging Crime?
Who hasn’t had their car window smashed in San Francisco? It happened to me twice. Seeing broken glass on curbs across the city is the new normal but it makes me angry every time.
There were 24,264 car burglary cases in 2018, according to San Francisco police data. There were more than 30,000 the year before. We didn’t feel the slight decline because the number was so high to start. And that’s only the reported numbers. How many thousands don’t bother reporting their broken windows because doing so can feel futile?
Residents are overwhelmed because auto burglaries are not just relegated to commercial and tourist areas. Neighborhoods in every corner of the city are now a target, as the distribution map below shows.
What’s going on?
It’s easy to get away with car burglary in San Francisco because of a loophole in state law. Car break-ins can’t be charged as felony theft unless it can be proven that the door was locked. Smart criminals simply unlock the door after smashing the window. No wonder San Francisco’s epidemic of auto burglary has resulted in so few convictions.
San Francisco can address car burglary with increased police patrols or car a burglary task force. But it will be in vain if a legal loophole continues to undermine the best efforts of law enforcement.
Yet a bill to fix the loophole has failed twice in Sacramento. Thanks to the current law’s total disconnect from common sense, there’s no way to deduce that a smashed window came first when police find an unlocked door with broken glass and items missing from the car. Criminals know the loophole well, which is why they can so brazenly break car windows and steal things in broad daylight as shown in the images below.
Courtesy Chinatown business owner via Facebook post.
It’s why San Franciscans reported 2,310 car burglaries to police in August alone this year — an average of 74 cases per day.
State Senator Scott Wiener has been trying to help. He proposed changing the law to remove locked/unlocked doors from the equation and make it easier to prosecute auto burglary with a smashed window as the only proof. But the appropriations committee blocked Wiener’s effort last year. After some media attention, Wiener had more progress this year. His bill passed the senate but was killed in a closed-door assembly meeting.
The inability of the California legislature to pass Wiener’s bill and close this ridiculous legal loophole defies explanation. It leaves residents with no choice but to conclude that our state legislature is encouraging crime.
It’s important that lawmakers continually review old laws and make adjustments to address new trends, especially when it comes to crime and public safety. What might have made sense years ago can become a liability when the reasoning no longer applies. That’s certainly the case with the law Senator Wiener is trying to fix.