Theft is taking off with something that is in plain view. Burglary includes breaking in, and robbery involves violent force. Lawgivers the world over especially detest violence, so no surprise that the latter two traditionally attract stiffer penalties.
Or burglary. My understanding is robbery is theft that involves violence or the threat of violence. Burglary is theft that does not involved violence or the threat of violence.
Your logic is strange. With robbery, the primary crime is the violence (or para-violent threat), and not the theft. This is easy to demonstrate: the punishment for breaking into someone's home in many jurisdictions is essentially the same, even if you steal nothing.
In the US, theft and robbery are classified separately. One of the distinguishing characteristics is that robbery generally involves force or the threat of force to take something.
You're confusing robbery and burglary. The common law definition of robbery is assault + larceny (theft) - that is, it's taking something that's not yours combined with making someone fear imminent harm.
They literally are not. If I have my pocket picked or my house burgled when I'm out, I may not find out until later. There was no violence or threat of violence employed against my person.
Robbery and theft are legally defined as separate crimes. The former is treated far more harshly than the latter.
This is not just a British difference. Robbery always involves some form of threat or assault in the US, legally speaking. And colloquially speaking too, except in recent years where the word has lost some meaning.
It's just a whole different philosophy. If the bad guys don't feel threatened by the people they rob, they will be less likely to use force against them. If we hear a burglar in our home, we europeans tend to hide and call the police, not confront them. It's the police's role to capture the burglars and justice's role to prosecute them.
The law protects everyone.
An obvious difference between IP theft and muggings, however, is that the later also entails threats of violence (and sometimes even assault & battery). That's why robbery is generally considered more heinous than burglary, where the victims are typically not present or asleep. I'd agree though that some sort of dollar figure should be attached to the psychological trauma of being mugged, so that great-enough white-collar crimes can also lead to imprisonment.
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