That may be so, but SF in particular did decriminalize A LOT of things. Most notable is theft under $950, for example, where is not hard to find videos and news items, e.g:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/us/san-francisco-shoplift...
Quite a different motivation than SF decriminalizing things
I remember that vote, and crowding in the prisons wasn’t even a consideration for how I voted because if we wanted to resolve that issue we would build more prisons; therefore it was a useless justification in either direction. In truth, the sum of our choices in California does not make it look like we care about crowding in the prisons, only that we care about looking like we care. It’s been more than 15 years since the first time I read an article about how our prisons are overcrowded, and they’re still overcrowded.
Even if you think there’s some measure of criminal justice reform that could be done to reduce the headcount in the future in the State of California’s prison system, you build the damn prisons now to address specifically: overcrowding in the prisons, and then if some future opportunity arises to raze some of the older prisons because they are no longer needed because the prison population has been reduced, then you do that. Or you don’t, and we haven’t, so that’s clearly what our choice is: not caring in the abstract. Given that, I have no patience for the people that pretend otherwise.
This is actually pretty normal nationwide (and also a rather conservatively low dollar number.) Fun fact: Did you know Texas' limit, yes texas, is $2500?
I don't think that reduction is the reason for an increase in crime and is more of a red herring and distraction. The real reason is a mix of ineffective policing (which is a product of both police being bad at their job and police being afraid to do their job because of ill will towards them) and ineffective prosecution.
Those problems have led to what feels like a "decriminalization" of theft, but that's not the law's problem. I promise you, SF would still be having these problems if this law didn't exist. (Hell, the highly publicized daylight ransacking of the Louis Vutton in Union Square shows how this law is irrelevant. Very few things in that store are under $950!)
I don't have anything empirical but in my experience the frequency and brazenness of the shoplifting (in SF) increased in a very noticeable way soon after the passage of Prop 47.
http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/images/screen_shot_2021-06-...
The one place you do see a dramatic impact is car break ins. But even that is a result of a broken relationship between the DA's office and the SFPD. The fact is, the SFPD is shitty at it's job (close rates are comically low, its understaffed, heaving demoralized) and the DA doesn't have people to prosecute.
Pickpocketing has just become a job. There are still fines but the gangs just write them off as business expenses. It's ridiculous.