Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Isn't that exactly how the criminal justice system works? No, it's not. We don't catch everybody guilty of petty theft, but those we do catch still don't end up in prison for life. There was a time when we chopped their right hand off, but I'm glad those days are behind us. (Reading many of the reactions here though, we are just a thin layer of judges away from mob rule.)
If the chances of getting caught are small, and the chances of being convicted are even smaller, should the punishment be harsher to have the same deterrent? You do understand how the petty theft criminal represented by a public defender is at a disadvantage to the white collar criminal with an army of lawyers paid by the company? "We should just catch more of them" is like saying we should just solve our energy prob…
Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
#341No, it doesn't work. The US has been actively trying this in many states, so we have data on the relationship between deterrence effect and the likelihood*harshness of punishments - it turns out likelihood really controls the strength of the effect of deterrence. If you have extremely harsh punishments you DO incentivize doing a lot of damage to get away with it, and also incentivize repeat or exacerbated offending. (See: "might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb")