The left's mishandling of criminal conduct

 Betsy McCaughey:

There's nothing petty about petty crime. Tolerate it, and society descends into disorder.

You're standing in line at Starbucks and watch a freeloader go to the front, pick out a sandwich and walk out without paying. No one says a word.

Or you pay your bills, then find out thieves have robbed the blue USPS box to abscond with your checking information and empty your account. That happened to me last week.

The thieves fish mail out of the box or use stolen USPS keys sold on the internet. This crime is surging, but the police and banks shrug their shoulders and advise going directly to the post office or using electronic banking.

Walk into a drug store to buy deodorant and toothpaste. They're locked up behind glass. A distraught Duane Reade employee explained why. Shoplifters waltz in, fill bags with merchandise and walk out. Management prohibits employees from stopping them.

Banks and retailers are forced to accept these crimes as a cost of doing business. Law enforcement officials are downgrading the penalties for many petty crimes. But the public is rattled and rightly so.

Batman, the cloaked crime fighter from Gotham, got it right. Criminals take advantage of weak laws and weak law enforcement.

Allowing petty crime -- shoplifting, carjacking, turnstile hopping, check forging and vandalism -- is a choice. California led the way, adopting Proposition 47 in 2014 to reduce penalties for these crimes. Many other states followed and no surprise, crimes increased.
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 If you tolerate small crime you will get more of it and also get larger crimes.  To stop it you must prosecute the petty crimes vigorously.  What California and the progressive DAs are doing around the country is facilitating crime.