For shoplifter and pickpocket, outlook’s rosy

Photo: G4S turvasalvestis

You bet: plans to raise petty thievery criminalisation bar from current €64 to €200 will lead to explosive growth of damages by minor shoplifting and the like. Estonian Traders Association, therefore, has proposed that the parliamentary legal committee, processing the draft amendment to Penal Code, go for €100 – as a compromise.

«Our message is simple: such a sharp change in the criminalisation line may serve as a trigger to activity of thieves,» says Villu Õun, guarding division chief at security company G4S. The man is responsible for keeping an eye of clients’ stuff. 

To Mr Õun, agreement is echoed by Traders Association head Raul Puusepp: «We are deeply worried. Regrettably, this will lead to a new wave of mass thievery in the stores.»

Mr Puusepp, in charge of the listed company Tallinna Kaubamaja, knows what he is talking about. The traders do have horrible recollections from the last time criminalisation floor was lifted, in 2001, to 1,000 kroons i.e. €64. 

The calculating crook

Shoplifting damages, usually within the hundred/ few hundred range, multiplied almost overnight, skyrocketing to the 900 to 1,000 kroons orbit.

Even today, security staff recalls the guys standing at alcohol counters, calculator in hand, to see that the theft planned would dodge criminalisation bar.

Merchants, guards and lots of people – one would think – agree: a thief is disciplined by thoughts of time behind bars. Pecuniary penalties prescribed for misdemeanour? The thief, as a rule, is not intending to pay these; the chance to lock a thief up for misdemeanour sadly remains just a theory – as experience would tell us, jailhouses are permanently plagued by lack of space.

Therefore, merchants worried about what is to come, brought their message of compromise. «We proposed to raise the criminalisation rate to €100, not €200 as planned,» says Raul Puusepp. «Regrettably, no one entered dialogue with us regarding the sum. All they said was that the sum (200 – R. B.) corresponds to the rise in cost of living, that’s all.»

Mr Puusepp repeats the threat, about to become a classic: it is regrettable that the state, again, is reducing its administrative load on account of the entrepreneur.

This may sound like demagogy; still, sadly, it contains quire a measure of truth. Even in Police, there is the quiet acknowledgment: in the future, we will deal less yet with the petty thief.

«Minor thefts used to be what criminal police did not deal with; now, they will be what the law and order police will not deal with,» is the buzzword, now spreading in investigative bodies.

Due to heavy work load, petty thefts today constitute mere paperwork for the criminal police, a formality. Still, a citizen at least has the comfort and confidence of somebody being at the case.

Now, the need to pretend to be working will go. In days to come, criminal police will have no business with these violations – these will be for the constable, to document the damage.

Same is true regarding thefts at people’s summer houses or lifting bicycles – main thing to keep damage under €200. To find out the thief, a constable will launch no special operations (detecting telephone calls, taking fingerprints). Thus, the cases remain unsolved.

With shopliftings, entrepreneurs will suffer. In other cases – the private person.

Nevertheless, while commenting on the looming doom, Police and Border Guard Board director general Elmar Vaher stays diplomatic. «Criminal Police will still be dealing with minor thieves as well. More precisely, with such as act in organised manner, or in groups,» said he.

A former criminal policeman, Mr Vaher knows what he is talking about. Criminally dealing with petty theft takes a whole lot of time, yet yielding meagre results. In Finland, for instance, as a thief is caught red-handed in a store, neither expert assessments nor any such stuff needs to be secured to convict the guy/gal in court. In Estonia, much more work is required to produce evidence, wearing out the investigators.

Thus, should the police rather rejoice over the planned move? Alas, all will not agree. For instance, the tripling of the criminalisation rate will make it harder to catch professional pickpockets.

Firstly: to catch a pickpocket red-handed requires that the investigators, literally, follow them physically for days i.e. many man work s. Secondly: lion’s share of one-off damage caused by pickpockets will be below €200. Should we add these up and find that investigators, as a result of days of work, only securing a misdemeanour punishment for a professional thief – that sounds unfair.

Red hands very rare

Politicians, the initiator of the reform justice minister Hanno Pevkur included, herewith answer that criminal punishments are still prescribed for repeated minor theft.

This, however, sound hollow: as those working «the fields» will tell you – with luck, a professional pickpocket is caught once in a couple of years. And then, with no real imprisonment happening, rather the modest financial fine – which the thief has no plans to pay – the resource-heavy operation’s sole reward is that the police, in its zeal, managed to reveal itself to the crook. Explaining: the thieves will remember faces of policemen, who were at their heels for days.

«I am more or less certain that, as the disputes start in Riigikogu, the level will not remain at €200. The society is just not willing to give such a gift to the thief.» This, in a private conversation, was admitted to Postimees by a well-known prosecutor.

The politicians who have argued with us over the issue still seem to differ. Summarised, their stand is this: for a misdemeanour, arrest is prescribed; and, for a criminal, it makes no difference if he sits behind bars, for a short time, for a crime or a misdemeanour. What counts, they say, is that the punishment comes swiftly.

Right. In case the one to be swiftly punished is found, that is.

The Penal Code review still sits in the parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee, waiting for reading in the main hall.