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Comment by ubernostrum | Hacker News Reader

It's the same reason that burglarizing your neighbor's house while they're on vacation is considered by most jurisdictions to be a less serious crime

And yet you'd still go to jail for doing that. Potentially for several years depending on the value of what you stole.

Wage theft orders of magnitude larger than that burglary would still typically only get a slap-on-the-wrist (relative to the ill-gotten gains) fine.

To turn your attempt on its head: why is robbing one person an offense that gets incarceration, but robbing a hundred people may not even get you prosecuted?

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why is robbing one person an offense that gets incarceration, but robbing a hundred people may not even get you prosecuted?

In the latter case (where you describe "robbing a hundred people"), are you referring to wage theft? Because if the employer is not using violence or threat of violence, then by definition they are not "robbing" people.

That was the entire point of my post: theft and robbery are not the same; robbery is theft + use/threat of violence.

That was the entire point of my post: theft and robbery are not the same; robbery is theft + use/threat of violence.

And then you used the analogy of breaking into a house when nobody's home. And I pointed out that carries stiffer penalties than wage theft, despite not involving the use or threat of violence against a person.

Your attempt to split hairs to justify the near complete lack of punishment for wage theft is not succeeding.

Fraud. You forgot fraud. We're not simply talking theft. It's fraud as well. Fraud - like the implied violence in robbery - is a violation of the social fabric. To think that it (i.e., fraud) is less damaging naive.

As I said earlier, put people in jail for theft and fraud and you'll see those things decrease. As it is now, too often (white collar) crime __does__ pay.

Generally speaking, most instances of wage theft rely on an implicit threat that if workers complain about it, they will be fired, frequently from a job that may be the only thing keeping them fed or in housing. How is that not a threat of violence, especially since you're arguing that handing over a note without a weapon is just as violent as pointing a gun at someone?

First time burglary rarely sees jail time.

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