Failure of reading comprehension. The threshold of $950 is between misdemeanor and felony theft. Note also this only applies to nonviolent offenses. So it’s not that there’s no recrimination, it just appropriately prioritizes police and prosecution resources to violent and high-value crimes while making it less of a life-wrecking situation when someone shoplifts some baby formula to feed a starving baby.
Note also that most retail businesses already have policies in place not to interfere directly with shoplifters. The effort is typically put into deterrence rather than enforcement due to liability for both employee and customer harm, which can greatly exceed the cumulative loss.
