[Camillo]

How do you think a heavy fine works in practice? You tell the bike thief he needs to pay $1000. He doesn't pay. Then what? You garnish the wages from the regular job he doesn't have? (His actual job is bike thief.) You send bounty hunters?!

Let's say you finally manage to impound his car. Now there's an article about how people's lives are being ruined because of fines and mere misdemeanors. We're back to square one.

[denton-scratch]

I agree. Increasing penalties is a knee-jerk reaction for some kinds of. politician; but it doesn't have any effect, because people don't get caught anyway. If there's a high risk of being caught, the thief might consider another trade.

Yeah, I know, that might just be shifting the problem - he could take up online fraud, or burglary, or mugging instead.