I don't understand not prosecuting theft at all. There are like 2 things which are super clearly bad and the government should stop (1) theft and (2) violence.
People shouldn't get life sentences for petty theft, but they should get a pretty severe punishment.
The organized thefts that result from not punishing crime at all fall into a new category, and are effectively a seed funding round for a new layer of criminality.
Tossing desperate people into prison makes them desperate people with a criminal record that makes them more desperate. Have you ever known anyone with a felony on their record trying to get their life on track? It's hard, and you might be surprised at what can get you charged with one. Even a non-felony conviction can cause trouble getting decent work.
You're not wrong with respect to the difficulty and stigma you mention, but we can't just let it be OK to steal from others. To address those legit concerns, we need to focus our efforts on our prison systems and local governments.
C'mon, prosecuting people stealing basic necessities[1], and small personal use items[2] are not gonna keep rich corporations from going out of business. We have to defend the marginalized, or else late stage capitalism will turn us all into slave wage laborers.
It's not Aladdin stealing a loaf of bread.. These are organized crime rings that are stealing to resell to "fences" who then resell the goods online or at flea markets. If you ran a business, I'm sure you'd see it differently. Almost no one is going hungry in America and certainly not SF, where we have generous social services.
In the first video there's a clip with a security guy confronting the person stealing and they just keep grabbing things as if he didn't exist. It's a bad comedy if it wasn't real.
Chicago has decided to follow in this folly. I expect it to rapidly implode as a result.