If we have to pay to keep a criminal like this off the street, then I'm OK with that. We're paying for protection.
Not to mention, there's lots that could go wrong with lacking the 'impulse control' to enter someone's hotel room.
It's not humane and it restricts liberty - but it's more humane and less liberty-restricting than the corrent "solution" of permanent imprisonment.
The sheer lack of imagination and knowledge you exhibit is astonishing. If I don't think it's smart to imprison him, I must want to cut his hand off? Let me guess; you're a US citizen and you don't travel much, so all you've ever seen regarding prison policy is identical US politicians posturing over who can be more "tough on crime"?
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-pri...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/11/sweden-closes-p...
Is that seriously the best fucking option you can come up with? A massively expensive revenge-trip that causes far, far more damage than the theft of a wallet?
Perhaps there's some kind of much, much more effective way to get him to stop taking things that don't belong to him. I say perhaps; of course there are. Lots, that are cheaper, more effective and build a better society; but no, (parts of) the US is happy doing this. Cutting off its own nose to spite its own face and destroying a life in the process, behaving like children.