[Tiktaalik]

Create a safe supply of prescribed drugs for drug users, build housing and increase the minimum income assistance so that people that cannot work aren't living a miserable and traumatic life and are able to focus on ending drug addictions and improving their life situation.

No one is putting any thought into the root causes of why petty theft is occurring. When you're addicted to drugs you need to use every day which costs money. You need even more money if you find yourself in debt, say to someone who gave you some drugs when you couldn't pay. No surprise that someone that needs a few bucks badly might rifle through a globe box for something to sell or steal from a store.

Creating a safe supply of prescribed drugs breaks up the entire cycle. No dealers to get indebted to, and accordingly no one to have to steal for. With affordable housing and supports, the driving reasons to commit survival petty thefts disappear. Sure there will probably be some people that continue to steal for extra cash, but at this point you've shrunk the problem down which gives police more of an ability to deal with the real trouble makers, the people that aren't stealing merely to survive.

It's wild that people are pointing the lack of prosecutions of theft under $1000 as the problem. Throwing the book at people committing these trivial thefts is the most costly and least effective approach. I suppose jailing people for petty theft makes the problem "disappear" but only until that person is released. Who wants to pay the enormous expense to lock up everyone? Not me.