Forgiveness definitely should have its place, particularly for minor offenses, however the consequences are often multifaceted and tangled. For example, as research often uses public (government) funds, there are sometimes
criminal consequences attached. [0][1]
A secondary issue is trying to determine what penalty is fair and trying to determine whether an error was intentional or unintentional. The boundaries are admitted by most to be fuzzy. Moreover there is a desire to exact punishment:
> A recent survey of roughly 1,800 people in the United States found that 90 percent of those who responded believe that fabricating data is morally repugnant. Preferred punishments include being blacklisted from university positions and being banned from government funding for future research, but don’t end there.
> “Most respondents who support criminalization prefer a sentence of incarceration, rather than a fine and/or probation,” according to the researchers, Justin Pickett and Sean Patrick Roche, both of the University at Albany. “The results indicate that slightly over half of all Americans would prefer both to criminalize data fraud and to sentence fraudsters to a period of incarceration.” [2]
... and then there's China, where the penalties sought seem even higher. [1][3] However, given the investment in most researchers and their specialized skills, it seems a huge waste to lock up that person in a way that prevents society from benefitting.
Finally, you have the problem of coordinating the action. With criminal behaviour, society coordinates action (for the most part) in order to achieve reasonable justice: Otherwise every person willing to act independently (as a vigilante) to extract an additional pound of flesh. We would need everyone to agree, otherwise you have situations where there is no punishment because someone breaks an embargo or you have too much punishment because multiple agents inflict punishment separately.
Your typical person breaking the law is stuck within one country. It's a bit more complicated for researchers, since most are highly mobile. A PhD in a STEM topic means visas are almost automatically granted, so it's relatively easy to get a position in a different country.
(It would be really interesting to see a follow-up on all of the researchers featured in [1], since that was written back in 2007.)
[0] http://navier.engr.colostate.edu/CH693/prot/Nature_445_244_2...
[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1747016119898400
[2] https://www.statnews.com/2016/08/04/fraud-science-jail-time/
[3] https://www.statnews.com/2017/06/23/china-death-penalty-rese...