[IIAOPSW]

Perjury is in a sense a more offensive crime than the petty acts that fills prisons everywhere, for it is the one crime that makes criminals of us all. And it is far worse when it is done by a member of a professional class that enjoys the benefit of being assumed credible rather than criminal. Faking data is in a sense much worse than overtly punching someone in the face, because the number of lives I can adversely affect by punching someone in the face is just one, and the number of people I can probably get away with punching in the face before being caught is also just one.

I see your point about wanting to reserve prison for strictly violent offenses, but there is such a thing as serious yet non-violent crime, which is the entire reason why low-security prison is there.

[inglor_cz]

One of the problem with jailing people is that their work ability is no longer available to the rest of the society, or only in a reduced form.

Scientists, even dishonest ones, are very highly educated people with important and hard to replace skills. Locking those skills away is a huge loss, much higher than when you lock up a run-of-the-mill Ponzi schemer.

I would prefer some punishment that would still make use of their talent and skills to benefit humanity. Perhaps they should be required to design better research methods that prevent their own sort of fraud etc.