An article in the Brisbane Times last year during the Queensland floods claims that looters attract the same moral repugnance as paedophiles. Is this a bit extreme? Do you think the up to 10 year maximum prison terms for some looters is fair? This article tells the story of one alleged looter committing suicide rather than facing the court and prison. Is property theft worth a life?

http://m.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/the-anonymous-death-of-an-alleged-looter-20110217-1ay9a.html

I think one of the reasons lotting is so repugnant is because like child molestation it involves exploiting a situation involving the disadvantaged.



If theft of the property caus3ed someone else to lose their life or ruin the mental health of the victim, why not make it worth a life.

Perhaps we should adopt sharia law. Conviction of theft means the loss of a hand.

in my view
in every religion looting is a hated thing because snatching a thing from a person without his/her wish is wrong act.

It depends on the property; as the discussion is related to floods then the theft of the only boat that may be on a property assumes life threatening proportions.

Could it also be because people are already vulnerable due to civil unrest or natural disasters? A case of 'kicking them when they are down'?

Looting usually occurs during a crisis. Due to the initial crisis, the majority of law enforcement officers are dealing with that, rather than protecting shop owners from criminals. During normal times, the police could come in and keep the peace. However, the lack of protection leaves a door wide open for opportunistic thieves.

When establishing law and punishment, we have two goals in mind. First, we want to deincentivize the unlawful action. If the first goal fails, we want to prevent the criminals from harming others in the future (by locking them up). Some would argue that this is also meant to rehabilitate, although I would point out that we haven't worked hard enough on rehabilitation (in the US, at least) as the reentry rate into prison is so high.

By making the punishment severe, we are essentially trying to persuade criminals that its not worth the cost. This is especially important in a situation where it may be very easy to get away with the crime. In the end, someone might decide that stealing a big screen tv is not worth the risk of ten years in jail.

However, it is important to distinguish between looting for survival (robbing a grocery store) vs. looting for profit (robbing an electronics store, assuming their not stealing batteries). The latter should clearly be punished with greater sentences than the former.

Because they don't clean up after them.