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Quote by: Cephus  It depends on what the ultimate goal is. If all you want is the money returned, then sure, it's ethical to offer the thief a chance to return it in exchange for no prosecution, after all, that theft is between the person who stole it and the one they stole it from, it's their call.
Personally, I don't think simple restitution is going to stop a person from stealing, they're going to get away with it more often than they're caught so they really have no reason to stop stealing unless they get severely punished for doing it at all. |
I'm not saying that one should not take additional action if the thief does not return what was stolen. However, it makes sense to me to first try to appeal to whatever ethical sense the thief may have. Failing that, like Isherwood said, it's prosecution time.
Again, I dispute the idea that things need to be prohibited by the State in order for people to refrain from doing them. Most people consider theft to be morally wrong because they would not want their own things stolen. So all one needs to do is to go after thieves and try to restore the stolen items back to their owners. There need not be State prohibitions against theft for this to happen.
You also bring up the repeat-offender problem. Unfortunately, the only sure-fire way to prevent repeat offenders is to kill them outright. Most people would not condone the death penalty for any and all crimes, however. Incarceration is the next step up, but it is prone to escape attempts. Given enough time, one of those attempts will be successful. Barring these two things, the only thing that can be done is provide incentives against committing crime -- in other words, show that crime really doesn't pay. Efficient capture and prosecution of criminals are powerful incentives here, and free-market crime-fighting organizations will (
ceteris paribus) be inclined to maximize those two things (e.g. "We boast a 98% success rate in our investigations!").
- Rob