Report: Florida theft convictions down despite felony threshold adjustment

(The Center Square) – According to a recent report, arrests and convictions for both misdemeanor and felony thefts has declined in the past five years despite a 2019 adjustment to the felony theft threshold.

The report says the "2019 change in the felony threshold did not result in a substantial number of felonies being reclassified as misdemeanors."

The report was authored by the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, which is the Florida Legislature's research arm.

The agency offered some options for lawmakers, including keeping the felony threshold amounts the same or increasing them to account for inflation using the U.S. Consumer Price Index, which the report says would've increased the threshold from $750 to $916.

Florida is one of 12 states with felony theft thresholds less than $1,000, while 38 states have thresholds of $1,000 or greater. Since 2019, Florida and six other states have amended these thresholds. According to the report, Texas and Wisconsin have the highest felony theft thresholds at $2,500 or more.

According to the report, there were 40,404 felony theft arrests and 34,085 misdemeanor arrests in 2014. After 2019, when the threshold was lowered, the number of felony arrests for theft plummeted from 26,285 in 2019 to 16,712.

While the numbers have rebounded in the past few years to 21,204 felony theft arrests in 2023, they have not reached the same level as nearly a decade previous.

That tracks with a national pattern of larceny arrests, which went from 1.04 million in 2014 to a low of 374,656 in 2021 before rebounding to 493,827 in 2022.

In 2019, the Legislature increased the felony theft threshold from $300 to $750. In 2022 and 2024, lawmakers amended the retail theft statute to expand the timeframe that retail theft offenses could be grouped to make it easier to reach felony levels.

In 2022, lawmakers created new third- and second-degree felonies for organized retail theft based on a 30-day period with different merchant locations. According to the law, if five or more thefts occur in a 30-day period and, in the process, the perpetrator or perpetrators obtain 20 or more items of merchandise, they can hit with felony charges.

This past session, lawmakers expanded the timeframe from 30 to 120 days for felony retail theft.

Lawmakers this past session also lowered the felony threshold from $100 to $40 when property was stolen from a dwelling.