A senior citizen I know recently had her purse snatched from her car in a supermarket parking lot.

She’d turned away for a few seconds to move a shopping cart, and in an instant the purse was lifted from the front seat through an open window.

The thief or thieves gassed up at a nearby self-service station, using her credit card, then made a beeline to a department store across the island to attempt charging hundreds of dollars with her cards.

Fortunately, she was akamai enough to immediately report the theft to her credit card companies. By the time the thieves tried paying with them at the department store self-checkout station, they had been suspended and were rejected.

But thwarting the purchases was small consolation to the victim, who felt like her life was in that purse and was brutally shaken at a time when seniors are already stressed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to the credit cards and a few hundred in cash, the thieves had her phone, bank checks and debit cards, driver’s license, Medicare card, Social Security number and various store and membership cards — all of which needed to be replaced under lockdown conditions.

They had her address as well as the keys to her house and both family cars, leaving her feeling frightfully vulnerable. She had to cancel her credit with the four major bureaus to try to keep the thieves from stealing her identity and opening new accounts in her name.

These predators target senior women and are often serial offenders reported to stake out busy parking lots around the island.

It struck me they’re exactly the kind of criminals the public defender recently tried to protect by lobbying Police Chief Susan Ballard to “step back” from making arrests in “misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor offenses and all nonviolent felonies” to spare perpetrators the risk of catching COVID-19 at Oahu Community Correctional Center.

To her credit, Ballard responded, “We suggest that rather than ask officers to step back on enforcement, efforts be made to encourage your clients to make the same sacrifices our community has been making by following the laws.”

The sad thing is the point is almost academic. As my senior friend learned after she notified police, these crimes often go unsolved. Perps who are caught are often cut loose by the courts. Such stolen property is seldom recovered.

I’m not insensitive to calls for criminal justice reform and certainly support keeping prison inmates as safe as possible in the pandemic, but it’s nobody’s fault but their own that they’re incarcerated.

Before we empty the prisons at the behest of defense attorneys and social reformers, these advocates must put forth concrete alternatives beyond pop criminology to protect seniors and others of our most vulnerable from being victimized by ruthless predators.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.