Also if an idealized version of yourself would still steal, perhaps that is also multi-faceted, and requires some other change to society other than the justice system. What do you think you'd steal? I think I'd steal too - mostly from large corporations, because I don't really care if Disney or Walmart profits go down.
Because people are perceiving a higher rate of visible crimes within a reasonably short time after the "reduce punishment" button was pushed.
Of course, going back to the old ways without any real progress on anything else is going to put us back to the old problems. (Costs of incarceration are high, concerns about fairness, concerns about conditions, etc)
> I think I'd steal too - mostly from large corporations, because I don't really care if Disney or Walmart profits go down.
I don't necessarily care about their profits per se, but if Walmart (or maybe a chain store you dislike less) leaves my community because of theft, that makes my life harder.
There's definitely already theft happening at Walmart so they have a non-zero tolerance for it. Frankly, I don't think Walmart leaving a community will necessarily be a bad thing for that community.
I don't have a good answer for your first question, but I would steal for fun and profit.
There's a thrill to breaking the rules and getting away with it. Part of it is the Ocean's Eleven cool factor. Part of it is the feeling of being smarter or more competent than security. And part of it is shortcutting the 'I made this' circuits in one's brain and feeling proud. There's probably more to it than that.
And profit is self-explanatory. Maybe it's greed. Maybe it's that I'd rather work on my own projects than have a job. Maybe something else. But I'd appreciate free stuff, absolutely.
This is interesting, maybe another facet to the usefulness of rules, discussion?
> But I'd appreciate free stuff, absolutely.
But why do you need free stuff? What are you trying to achieve with the stuff?
I think you probably get where I'm going with this questioning...
It is counterintuitive to suggest that punishments have an insignificant effect on crime rates. It doesn't pass the 'me' test- even my idealized version of myself would steal if there were no consequences, though it's tricky to judge whether I'd be more or less inclined with variable consequences. Again, doesn't mean it's not true, just sets the bar for evidence a little higher.