Theft of any amount over a hundred or so dollars is evil and needs to be punished. Let’s say you punish theft of $100 by a weekend in jail. Extrapolate that on a linear scale and you’ll have criminals who non-violently stole $20,000 doing more than double the jail time that a criminal who cold-cocked a stranger and broke his jaw would get. Doesn’t really make sense.
It strikes me that I’m not sure whether I’d prefer to lose $20,000 or have my jaw broken. I’m pretty sure I’d prefer to have my jaw broken than to lose $200,000, though. So, especially in the case that the money cannot actually be extracted back from the thief, I would tend to think the $200,000 theft should be punished more harshly than the jaw-breaking. And, sure, you’ve said that the $20,000 would be punished more harshly than the jaw-breaker, but that’s plausibly just because 2 days is too long for a $100 theft to begin with.
Theft of any amount over a hundred or so dollars is evil and needs to be punished. Let’s say you punish theft of $100 by a weekend in jail. Extrapolate that on a linear scale and you’ll have criminals who non-violently stole $20,000 doing more than double the jail time that a criminal who cold-cocked a stranger and broke his jaw would get. Doesn’t really make sense.
It strikes me that I’m not sure whether I’d prefer to lose $20,000 or have my jaw broken. I’m pretty sure I’d prefer to have my jaw broken than to lose $200,000, though. So, especially in the case that the money cannot actually be extracted back from the thief, I would tend to think the $200,000 theft should be punished more harshly than the jaw-breaking. And, sure, you’ve said that the $20,000 would be punished more harshly than the jaw-breaker, but that’s plausibly just because 2 days is too long for a $100 theft to begin with.