So many threads about life in Texas, here's one more....

[Onkel Neal]

This should make the left happy

Dallas, Texas Is a Petty Shoplifter's Paradise
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/201..._paradise.html

As far as I can tell, police departments employ two main strategies when they’re under pressure to cut crime fast. In strategy no. 1, they flood crime zones with special police units that muscle criminals and contraband off the streets. In strategy no. 2, they simply downgrade crimes, or make it more difficult for citizens to report them.

The Dallas, Texas police department chose the latter strategy last year when it announced that police officers would no longer respond in person to shoplifting incidents involving items worth $50 or less. Instead, victimized merchants were instructed to print a form off the DPD website, fill it out, and put it in the mail. According to the Dallas Morning News, the new process has been a huge hassle for merchants. “Retailers overwhelmingly described a time-consuming process with onerous paperwork requirements,” reported Tanya Eiserer and Steve Thompson.

As a result, more and more small thefts are simply going unreported. “Minor shoplifting offenses averaged about 10 a day before the policy,” write Eiserer and Thompson. “Immediately afterward, that fell to fewer than three a day.” The paper estimates that there’s been a 75 percent drop in petty shoplifting reports over the past year. Hooray, crime is tumbling!

Well, it's not like the police actually did anything about shoplifting other than look annoyed and take the report, but hey! Progress. And no one's Constitutional rights have been violated.