Because prison is barbaric, and expensive and should be saved for hardened criminals. Nothing personal, but it's people like you who think throwing people in prison some kind of societal solution that we have overflowing prisons of petty criminals.
* Whether you consider the consumers or the low-level tellers who set up millions of shadow accounts to meet otherwise impossible performance goals to be the bottom layer, I think the point stands either way.
I'm perplexed by your use of the word 'hardened.' Perhaps you meant 'violent' but there are plenty of people in prison who had a clean record until they committed a violent crime of passion or suchlike, and likewise there are plenty of criminals whose criminality is unquestioned but who never engaged in any violent activity. Again you probably didn't intend this, but I can't help feeling that you're unconsciously making a class distinction between stereotypical blue collar heavies who help themselves or carry out break-ins, vs the sort of nice socially acceptable behavior of sitting at a desk signing corporate documents which will affect thousands or millions of people that the executive has never met and knows nothing about.
Look, I'm sure you just had some generic 'tough guy' in mind, but it's not like I'm demanding the guy get thrown into some hellhole and raped int he shower every day. I'd like if we could have humane prisons like some countries, far fewer people in them, and that they should form a representative cross-section of society.
Really, if you don't have some sort of institutional accountability then it just increases the incentives to do this sort of thing precisely because the upside benefits are so much larger than the downside risks. OK, Stumpf's professional reputation is in tatters and it's probably had a negative impact on his social life...but he can basically afford to spend the rest of his life on a yacht. People suffer worse consequences from divorce.
- Stolen TV (let's say $1000 burglary)
- Stolen car (let's say $15,000)
- $500MM fraud
I'll play anyway for funzies though. First offence?
All 3 should be a non-bankruptable fine with a floor that also scales with historical earnings and wealth. I can't give specific numbers because I think it should be set at figures large enough to act as a suitable deterrent which I don't know and would need to research. Since in a scenario where I'm magically put in charge of the legal system I would have the means and incentive to do that research, I think that's fair on my part. Potentially some public shaming involving stocks and vegetable throwing depending on its cost effectiveness as a deterrent as well.
I imagine the fine amount would be far greater for the fraud though, which would help with the lack of proportionality.
I think one issue is the perception that some very rich people can afford to pay those large fines, which acts as less of a deterrent.
ETA: IS a non-bankruptable fne proportional if the fraud actually bankrupted many others? What if the consequence of the fraud on said victims then led them to further crimes which led them to a ruined life of pverty and squalor? Is a non-bankruptable fine still proportionate? What if it led to suicide, or armed robbery, or even murder...
In this instance, prison would actually serve as a deterrence.