I think there's plenty of examples of a small opinion resulting in big, unintended consequences. If people start thinking there's no long-term punishment for th

I think there's plenty of examples of a small opinion resulting in big, unintended consequences. If people start thinking there's no long-term punishment for theft if caught then no one will attempt to take advantage of it? I'm not saying hordes of people will suddenly start a thieving life, that's just nonsense that no one is really claiming. But there will be people emboldened by such things. Some people thought a similar thing a few years back in the US. The thought was that since sometimes innocent people are injured due to police chases that there should be restrictions on such chases, most of them involved giving up. The leading argument against was that you are essentially telling criminals to always run because the police will break off. I believe cooler heads prevailed that instituted new policies that did not allow such nonsense. As for your example; do you think the store just returns the attempted stolen item to be placed back on the shelf to sell to another customer? Even if the thief is caught, there is a form of loss due to the product likely being useless to them. Finally, yes the guy was caught but not punished. That is not necessarily a recourse for the owner of the stolen property, they are still out the stolen property. It's not like the neighbor's kid stealing your bike that can be returned, they can't sell food handled by a thief, security, and or police. If the effect on the bottom-line is nearly zero then why bother trying to prevent theft at all?