You ignored the expected outcomes to emphasize your emotional rationalization based on “jailing a child”. That was never likely to happen, based on how US law works. For theft, even felony theft, you’re usually talking about supervised probation on a first offense — the same as felony drug offenses. There’s a whole chart of proscribed sentences based on offense and contributing factors.
> That can happen, but that’s not usually what happens when people get put through the system.
But that’s not the relevant question, eg, you’re ignoring the fact most thieves don’t stop because someone declined to prosecute them, either. You’re holding me to standards you didn’t apply to yourself.
The relevant question is — “for serial criminals who later stopped, what caused them to?”
In many cases, being jailed does stop their repeated criminality or stop the pathway of escalation. By contrast, there’s also many people who because they’re not punished, continue to escalate until they commit a violent offense and the state is forced to jail them.
> Frankly I find this line of thinking pretty tiring, with people pretending that they care about abstract “future victims”, that may or may not exist, as a means of LARPing empathy.
We’re discussing practiced criminals who likely offended before and will again — and who were physically aggressive with their victim.
You’re accusing me of “LARPing” empathy, but you’re showing time after time you’re not engaging in empathy (either understanding the thieves nor concern about victims), but soothing your emotions. That you don’t think future victims matter or people are genuinely concerned about them speaks to your own lack of empathy — both in general (ie, you can’t imagine how the person who stole from you might harm someone else and that person might be hurt) and in particular (ie, you can’t imagine how I’d genuinely be concerned about other victims, because that’s not how you feel).
You’re the one LARPing empathy to cover for your toxic emotionally driven conduct.