Evidence or argument to support this? It seems false by definition.
Tautologically, you're right. Liberal is people who wouldn't do this, therefore...
But, of people who would self-identify as liberal how many are in fact closet authoritarians? Lots!
Now here, "Most liberal" might be just talking about people still within mainstream thinking. Though many talk about not throwing people in jail for things like Marijuana, few talk about reducing sentences for non-drug related crimes (and pretty much no discussion on reducing it for violent crimes as well).
Personally, I was on the other side of the fence, until the constant evidence of the extreme suffering a large segment of the population goes through in prison convinced me that we're accomplishing immense amounts of harm this way.
In the American definition of the word.
As long as we prosecute as many people in their position as possible it doesn't seem to be a problem if we miss some. It's only selective when we choose who to ignore.
Something like Aaron Schwartz where it wasn't a crime until someone who made the DA look like an idiot does it... Then it's clearly crossed the line.
Or even just the possibility of piercing the veil of incorporation, ie let the employees take some risk on the downside, too.
If a bankster's danger to society can be remedied by banning him from his chosen profession, and justice served with a fine, it does seem like we could spare the cage.
And maybe we could spare the cage... But after we get around to the mistakenly (cough) convicted black people, and poor people, and those with mental illness, etc, then we can worry about the poor-banker in his comfortable minimum-security cell.
No, not really. The crime inflicted homelessness, multiple jobs to feed your family, depression, broken marriages, suicide, etc.
If there's no downside to attempted theft, like they just lose the ill-gotten money and get to go home to a warm bed, we might as well be incentivizing it.
Besides, Jail isn't inherently costly - American for-profit prisons are intentionally wasteful. We don't need to spend a million-dollars a year per prisoner.
The bankers know what they do.
Only if you believe in dualistic free will.
And, philosophical questions of free will tend to be a waste of time to consider. If you don't have free will then we also didn't really "choose" to execute you... Next.
Locking someone up for a long time seems unusually cruel unless their crime involved punishing someone in a similar fashion over a similar amount of time. An eye for an eye seems to be more appropriate but impossible and immoral in its implementation.
Making some of those bankers live in poverty to me seems like a good punishment. Make them realise what it feels like to "lose it all", something they did basically inflict on thousands of people. Very hard to implement though.
People always talk about throwing bankers in jail for the crisis, but why would you wish all this suffering on anyone? Denying freedom for someone for years. Especially considering the multitude of studies showing that extended incarceration _does not work as a deterrent_.
We should be ashamed, a country with this sort of penal system cannot declare itself to be a bastion of civil rights.