Talking to police officers for 5 minutes after you commit a crime is the cost of being part of society. It seems very reasonable to me and I wouldn't call it traumatic.
> maybe we should all be severely punished for our mistakes
This qualifies as severely punished?
> The world is a much better place if we can work together and be understanding of mistakes
Completely agree, that's why Aaronson complete inability to understand his mistake is so gross. Even after it's explained to him and he's back home writing a blog post about it, he still doesn't understand his mistake.
Did he commit a crime? What he did isn't a crime in England.
Theft in the US generally involves intent, not merely taking. There was certainly probable cause to arrest for petty theft, but a taking under an honest mistake of ownership is not theft, so, if one accepts Aaronson’s account, he did not, in fact, commit theft.
OTOH, whether a jury would believe it plausible that not only did he initially forget that he had paid by card and mistake the tip jar for change but, when told that the container from which he had just taken money was for tips, still did not realize that the money he had taken was tips and not his change is another question, so I wouldn't have been surprised if, if this had gone further, he had been convicted of theft even if his narrative of th facts external to his mental state were accepted as true.
I'm not sure what he did meets all of those tests. I'm not sure it meets "dishonest" - it sounds like it was a simple mistake.
Theft in the US afaik is also defined as "intent to deprive". That's why e.g. joyriding is different than grand theft auto.
There exists also strict liability crimes where intent is not considered but theft is not one of them.
Well, I'm glad we've got you here to tell us all that he didn't feel how he felt.