[rdwallis]

You have a very small chance of being caught if you ride the subway without a ticket. If you are caught some countries will work out what to fine you by multiplying the chance of being caught by the price of the ticket you didn't buy. So if they check your ticket once every 100 times you catch a train the fine for not having a ticket will be more than 100 times the cost of the ticket. That way not buying a ticket works out more expensive than buying one.

If you actually want to deter this kind of crime you need to fine the people who are caught the amount of money they stole multiplied by the number of people who don't get caught. So you should probably be thinking 20 or 30 times the amount stolen.

Of course such large fines might take entire industries down with them so you're unlikely to ever see corporate crime punished as excessively as it should be.

[pilom]

The train example is very informative because if you don't price the fine high enough you encourage people not to buy tickets. There actually was a mob-run "insurance" plan for train riders in India. The fine was about 20x the ticket price, but you would only be asked to show your ticket about every 100-200 rides. So you could buy half priced tickets from the mob and then they would reimburse you for any fines you paid while riding with their ticket.