The reasoning for putting her in prison seems to be based on the severity of doing an almost a billion dollar in fraud. That is in the ballpark of some of the w

The reasoning for putting her in prison seems to be based on the severity of doing an almost a billion dollar in fraud. That is in the ballpark of some of the worlds largest bank robberies. There are good reason to question prison sentences for non-violent crime, and asking about the goals society has. If the goal is deterrent, then studies do show that harsher punishment can be effective if the crime is done under partial rational decision based on the risk of getting caught and the punishment if they do. If the goal is rehabilitation, then the results is less clear and may have the opposite effect. There is a lot of research and studies on this subject. Some compare different countries, like Norway vs US, and other compare states/cities, or the same location but different years with different strategies. To my knowledge there isn't a lot of consensus in what actually works.