“So we’re going backwards and we need to be moving ahead,” said Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, executive director for the ACLU of Virginia. Factoring in the inflation rate, $200 in 1980 would be worth more than $600 today. Critics say that the increased threshold is not high enough.

Most states have thresholds of $1,000 and some are even higher. “But it is unjust that a theft of something like a pair of shoes or a phone could send someone to prison with a felony conviction on their record for life.”Įven with a felony threshold of $500, the theft of a new iPhone would still result in a felony. “We want to remain tough on crime in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Northam said. The state’s felony threshold is tied with New Jersey’s as the lowest in the country, and hasn’t been been updated since 1980.īut this year, Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam and legislators announced a bipartisan deal to raise the threshold to $500, in exchange for restitution changes. In Virginia, stealing $200 or more is considered a felony.

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