> while someone who steals candy from a bodega gets to spend years if not decades in prison
it's usually because the bodega thief is waving a gun around and threatening to kill someone, while the library thief isn't.
it's usually because the bodega thief is waving a gun around and threatening to kill someone, while the library thief isn't.
Here's a couple examples. No violence, just shoplifting:
https://www.npr.org/2016/04/04/473004950/new-orleans-man-fac...
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-04-26-000427...
I'm not sure life in prison is the answer, but it does make sense that repeated aggressions would be met with stronger negative feedback.
Perhaps the crux of the issue is in the "repeated negative reenforcement" and its failure to rehabilitate a person with anti-social behavior.
Stealing culturally significant items from the public like this case is more similar to graft or corruption, or breach of fiduciary duty. White collar crime. Far from victimless, it hurts everyone.
This case is kind of odd though, as the perpetrator committed the same crime many times over a quarter of a century. The items stolen were also of great cultural value. So here we have a person who has repeatedly stolen cultural items, yet they get a very lenient sentence - I very much doubt the sentence would have been the same had he been a black man from a working class family.
This case really highlights the two-tier legal system that exists in the US.
Like a life sentence for stealing hedge clippers. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/us/louisiana-supreme-court-tr...
People robbing stores, I'd wager, are often repeat offenders. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws over the last few decades have dramatically increased the prison-time durations for those people, even for many lesser/low violence crimes.