I'm not surprised when I see on swedish news how a pedophile gets 3-4 years for molesting hundreds of children and a bank robber gets 5-8 years for not hurting a single person but stealing millions.
It's a long standing dark gag here that financial crime is being treated much worse than violent crime.
“Do you understand what I'm saying?"
shouted Moist. "You can't just go around killing people!"
"Why Not? You Do." The golem lowered his arm.
"What?" snapped Moist. "I do not! Who told you that?"
"I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Three Eight People," said the golem calmly.
"I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!"
"No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.”
Stealing $1.00 from a million people who won't miss it is more devious as you're less likely to get caught and if you get caught people are less likely to bother pursuing it.
But I think it is impossible to say one is objectively worse than the other. It depends so much on how the crime affects people. If you steal a million from a multi-billionaire, he might not even notice. If you scam a clueless person out of a million that they got in debt to hand over to you, that will ruin their life.
Bank robbery is a bad example of a financial crime..
But embezzlement, etc... Are often punished harder because these are deliberate crimes, often thought-out by rational people. And these crimes are done by people to who a great responsibility was entrusted.
Most violent crimes, most crimes in fact, are not even remotely thought through. They are extremely impulsive, or unlike to be financially motivated.
Finally, crimes like corruption and embezzlement constitutes serious threats to society. Because they erodes peoples trust in institutions, rule of law, police, etc.
Americans would trust wall street more if there was fewer financial crimes..
You won't get 5-8 years for stealing money. But many bank robberies kill or severely hurt people. And even where they don't, victims can be traumatised for a long time. Having a gun pointed at you isn't great for your mental health.
Harsh sentences for those cases are not about the money lost by an insurance, it's about the willingness to hurt or kill people for some extra money.
I guess the argument is that piracy is a financial crime.
Which at a certainly scale is absolutely true.
Sweden have historically had very weak laws when it comes to private citizens doing piracy. But that's also very different from a commercial piracy enterprise.
I used the phrase bank robber but what I meant was värdedepårån. Semantics, the point is that financial crime is often treated worse than violent crime.
Our whole society is cashless and one of the official reasons are to prevent robberies. But we haven't changed sentences for pedophiles.
Pick a case. I just googled "dömd pedofil" and found several cases of them being convicted to 2-4 years prison for molestation and rape.
And they get psychological care very often.
There's one in Falkenberg that raped 3 girls for several years and he received a sentence of 9 years, which is 1 year longer than a famous unarmed cash robbery performed in Sweden.
Even when they get relatively harsh sentences it doesn't seem enough to me.
...Should they not? I mean, granted those sentences seem awfully lenient, but unless their sentence is life or death, they're going to get out eventually, and we want them to be less rapey when they do, right?
I'm just saying that psychological care is a summer camp compared to some other prisons.
Problem is that when pedos end up in normal prison they need 24/7 guards because the other inmates will hurt them. So in psych care they end up with others of their own kind and more lenient environments.
It's a long standing dark gag here that financial crime is being treated much worse than violent crime.