Harsher sentences can actually be detrimental. It's not so bleak that someone would be willing to spend years in prison for a $200 phone.
Similarly, I didn't actually believe it was worth more than $125 to be a few seconds earlier to work this morning, which would be a rational, economic justification for a $125 traffic ticket. Instead, I've driven some 250,000 miles in the past 10 years (thankfully done with the long highway commute that caused most of them), I'd say about half of them were at 5mph over, and I've never received a ticket. I traded a 1:100,000 chance of a ticket against keeping up with the rest of traffic who were also uniformly breaking the law; I'm pretty adept with numbers but I find it difficult to comprehend that scale.
They're trading a tiny, tiny chance of prison time against a $200 phone. The actual percentage of enforcement is irrelevant compared to the justified, reinforced belief that they won't be caught or punished. OP mentioned that as a juror they were depressed at the apparent mandate to sentence someone to years in prison for the petty theft, instead, consistent enforcement of an appropriate penalty would be far better at changing behaviors.
Similarly, I didn't actually believe it was worth more than $125 to be a few seconds earlier to work this morning, which would be a rational, economic justification for a $125 traffic ticket. Instead, I've driven some 250,000 miles in the past 10 years (thankfully done with the long highway commute that caused most of them), I'd say about half of them were at 5mph over, and I've never received a ticket. I traded a 1:100,000 chance of a ticket against keeping up with the rest of traffic who were also uniformly breaking the law; I'm pretty adept with numbers but I find it difficult to comprehend that scale.
They're trading a tiny, tiny chance of prison time against a $200 phone. The actual percentage of enforcement is irrelevant compared to the justified, reinforced belief that they won't be caught or punished. OP mentioned that as a juror they were depressed at the apparent mandate to sentence someone to years in prison for the petty theft, instead, consistent enforcement of an appropriate penalty would be far better at changing behaviors.