Petit Larceny - Ending the Three Strikes Rule

Theft of items valued under $1000 in Virginia is Petit Larceny, a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to twelve months in jail and fines up to $2500, plus any restitution that may be owed. If it's a third offense within twenty years, however, the penalties increase substantially. A third offense Petit Larceny is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. This sentencing enhancement applies irrespective of the value of what is stolen; the combined total worth of all three goods could total less than $5, but nonetheless offenders could face a prison term of five (5) years.

 One of the reasons to eliminate the Petit Larceny Third penalty is immediately apparent. Incarcerating someone for 5 years for stealing something worth less than $1000 is facially unreasonable. Whatever value we may place on the security of someone’s property, imprisoning someone for five years for shoplifting doesn’t make sense. We now understand the many costs of incarceration – costs to the incarcerated, costs to their families, and costs to taxpayers. We also understand that harsh punishments are inevitably imposed disproportionately against people of color. Even if we knew nothing else about those who commit offenses like these, eliminating this enhanced penalty would be good policy.

 But people who repeatedly commit Petit Larceny offenses are not thieves looking to get ahead, nor are they master criminals. They are often from Virginia’s most vulnerable communities. They suffer from mental illness, have substance use disorders, and are often homeless. Subjecting people like these to felony penalties is, in many cases, pointlessly cruel. We should be aiming to make our criminal laws more just and rational, and eliminating this enhancement would be a step in the right direction.

 Virginia’s recidivist statutes were part of the national trend that brought us California’s notorious “three strikes” laws. One of the lasting lessons of this wave of punitive legislation was the disproportionate impact on African-Americans. As with so many other harsh punishments, the discretion invested in courts and prosecutors ends up with disparate results. The societal benefit of preventing future shoplifting is not very compelling when weighed against the disparate racial and economic impacts that such legislation creates among people of color and the poor. Both felony convictions and lengthy sentences severely and negatively impact future economic opportunity. 

Nor do sentencing enhancements reduce crime. We have seen that deterrent effects rely on would-be criminals being knowledgeable about these laws and their application in their own cases. There is no evidence that this dynamic works or that people make rational decisions when deciding whether or not to break the law. Indeed, previous convictions and jail terms already have not deterred those charged with this offense, suggesting that the money spent to incarcerate the people committing these offenses would be better spent on intervention programs aimed at helping them.

At bottom, these sentencing enhancements reflect our frustration with the failures of our criminal legal system. The fact that people keep committing minor offenses like these after being convicted is evidence that our system isn’t rehabilitating people or deterring future offenses. We adopted these sentencing enhancements with an enduring faith that we could fix any problem with threats of greater and greater incarceration. But this faith has proved misplaced. Such legislation serves only to more severely punish the people in our society who are the most vulnerable. It does so at great cost to the prison system and no real benefit other than the political satisfaction of retribution. Virginia deserves a criminal legal system based on good policy, not frustration and anger.

 This article was written by Paul McKenzie and Andy Elders