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Comment by whack | Hacker News Reader

It's about time white collar crimes are taken as seriously as other crimes. If you break into someone's home and steal $10,000, no one bats an eye over imprisonment. But if you steal $100,000 from taxpayers, you suddenly become a lot more sympathetic.

I wonder to what extent this is because burglary is committed by people who are poor and not well educated, whereas white collar crimes are committed by people who look just like your friends and colleagues.

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For burglary it could also just be fear and risk of violence. If someone is willing to forcefully break into a house, they are probably willing to harm the owner if they happen to be home. A better example would be to compare white collar crime to shoplifting as neither of those crimes has the same undertones of violence to them.

>It's about time white collar crimes are taken as seriously as other crimes. If you break into someone's home and steal $10,000, no one bats an eye over imprisonment. But if you steal $100,000 from taxpayers, you suddenly become a lot more sympathetic.

Breaking into a home is a violent crime whereas white collar crime is nonviolent. You can often return property, you cannot make someone un-experience a burglary. Don't get me wrong (i.e. "I know that if I don't include this disclaimer someone will try to) white collar crime and corruption like this should certainly be prosecuted but there's a reason we generally don't punish it as severely as violent crime since we generally consider property less valuable than life and health.

Exactly. Almost anyone would much prefer to lose $100 to a scammer than someone who breaks into your home and takes it. The latter is far more violating and scary.

> I wonder to what extent this is because burglary is committed by people who are poor and not well educated, whereas white collar crimes are committed by people who look just like your friends and colleagues.

Not much since poor people who are friends and colleagues to other poor people also make the same judgements.

It's hard to fight the biggest cheaters, because they have lots of money and can afford lawyers. When big tech companies and billionaires get to avoid taxes with stuff like tax loopholes and offshore nonsense, you have a lot of sympathy for the smaller guy stealing a measly 100K.

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