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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | June 6, 2022 04:36 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Christopher M. Rabb |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Establishing an Automatic Inflation Adjustment for Criminal Offense Grading |
| As is the case with most laws, the dollar values that determine the grading of criminal offenses are rarely updated. However, unlike other laws, inflation causes these offense grades to become stricter over time as the dollar values of goods and services rise with inflation while statutory thresholds remain stagnant. For example, if an individual stole a ring worth $1,500 from a home in the year 2000, that person would have committed a first-degree misdemeanor. However, if someone stole that very same ring from a home in 2022, they would have committed a third-degree felony because the dollar value of the ring has risen to over $2,400, well over the $2,000 felony threshold for theft offenses. To remedy this injustice, I intend to introduce legislation which will require all dollar values as elements of a criminal offense to be adjusted for inflation every five years based on the Consumer Price Index. This change will not affect crime rates as made evident by a Pew Charitable Trusts research study which concluded that raising felony theft thresholds had no impact on overall property crime or larceny rates. Further, other areas of law, like taxation and the salaries of legislators, are indexed to rise with inflation so this legislation would simply apply that same standard to all criminal offenses. As a whole, this bill will make our laws more just by ensuring that people are held accountable for their actions without burdening them with excessive and unjust punishments. Please join us in modernizing the grading of criminal offenses. |
Introduced as HB2717