It’s just shoplifting (or is it?): examining court processing of shoplifting before and after the passage of Mississippi House Bill 585

Objective: to examine the court processing of shoplifting offenses before and after the 2014 passage of Mississippi House Bill 585 in a rural jurisdiction. Methods: dialectical approach to cognition of social phenomena using the general scientific (analysis, synthesis, induction) and specific scientific (formal-legal, systemic, comparative-legal, sociological) methods of cognition. Results: the research revealed several important policy implications. The first revolves around the importance of reducing the number of individuals charged with shoplifting that miss their court appearance. Previous research has revealed that, in many jurisdictions, individuals fail to appear in court not because they consciously refuse to appear but often because they are unaware or unable to appear. This may be a particular problem in the study city because they lack reliable public transportation of any form (making individuals heavily reliant on friends and relatives to help them get to their court appearance) and the court does not have a court appearance reminder notification system in place. This jurisdiction, and others who share these problems, would likely be well-served in considering a notification system whereby the individual who is to appear at court is notified 48–72 hours prior to their court appearance and required to respond to that notification. If no response is received, a follow-up inquiry should be submitted. If no response is received after the second notification, additional steps could be implemented prior to charging the individual with failure to appear or adjudicating them as guilty in absentia. A second important implication from this study has to do with the role of Walmart in the local community and criminal justice system. Walmart often has the largest loss prevention presence of any business in small, rural communities like this one. Thus, these security personnel have a vested interest in reducing shoplifting at Walmart. Local criminal justice officials should thus make special efforts to incorporate Walmart into crime prevention and reduction strategies in the community. Regular meetings between Walmart security personnel, the police chief and sheriff, and judges and corrections personnel would likely result in strategies that would both reduce shoplifting at Walmart and reduce the burden of shoplifting. Scientific novelty: the work showed that House Bill 585 increased the threshold required to move shoplifting from a misdemeanor to a felony (from $500 to $1,000) and took away the requirement that the third and subsequent arrests for shoplifting (for less than $500) were automatically enhanced as felonies. The findings reveal that the gender and racial gap in shoplifting arrests in the jurisdiction under study were reduced after House Bill 585. On the other hand, overall numbers of shoplifting arrests, failures to appear, and guilty dispositions increased after House Bill 585. Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific, pedagogical and law enforcement activities when considering issues related to the crime prevention and suppression.