If your goal is deterrence you have to ask who's more likely to commit an offense. When you lump someone into a group and apply different levels of punishment b

If your goal is deterrence you have to ask who's more likely to commit an offense. When you lump someone into a group and apply different levels of punishment based on their group, that's just wrong and evil. You think its fine because [group] is some group you may not like (rich people). But if you start treating people differently based on [group] you risk losing control of who is defining the group. The simplest and fairest way is to treat everyone equal in the eyes of the law. That's the ideal and when possible we should reach for that ideal