USA Today's Kevin Johnson reports that California, Delaware, Illinois, Montana, Oregon, and Washington are among the states reclassifying some property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, "a change that could spare prison terms for minor offenses and save states jail and prosecution costs."

"'Clearly one of the motivating factors is cost,' said Alison Shames, associate director of the Center on Sentencing and Corrections for the Vera Institute of Justice. 'States are looking at the numbers of people in prison for property crimes and asking themselves a simple question: Does everybody really need to be there?'"