What does DTK need?

[ijmorlan]

I think well-off people who have the ability to run a business will think carefully about the penalties, and are likely to stay away from anything that has a good chance of putting them in prison.

Isn't that likely to be the case, though, regardless of sentence length? I doubt any of them want to answer "yes" to the conviction question on an application or have that pop up in their background search.

I think you’re saying the sentence lengths don’t need to be excessive to get the point across? You’re probably right, and I’m not necessarily calling for heavy sentences in all cases, although repeat offences need to be handled more strictly.

My point is that these types of criminals can be assumed to think about the consequences; if they still do the crime it’s because they think they won’t get caught or because the penalties are insufficient, not because they really need that extra $1M in fraud proceeds to keep warm tonight. But it’s at least as much about the system being willing to investigate, prosecute, and convict them, and then sentence them to something real, not some nonsense suspended sentence or whatever, as it is about the de jure penalties.