> such threat of violence also acts as the only effective deterrent
People still steal in places where the punishment is losing a hand or being stoned to death. What do you propose that would be a greater deterrent than those?
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.
Petty theft is not violence; violence is crime against a person's body. The only violence that happened here was the guy attacking the thief.
In almost all cases, escalating a relatively minor crime into physical violence against a human being is the wrong move, and needlessly increases the risk in a situation.
Grab the wrong person by accident? In a lot of states that might endanger your own life if the person decides to defend themselves.
Escalating to violence over simple objects (property) is to have priorities out of whack.
It doesn't Have to include threats of violence or acts of violence: It simply usually does.
It does Always include theft of goods, though. This man wasn't stealing things, but rather trying to get his own cash. Despite the violence, this wasn't robbery.
Additional deterrent force is required, else people would always steal, and they'd be no worse off if they were caught than if they'd bought it in the first place.
However, that retaliation is usually left to the courts in a society governed by laws. For example if someone steals from you, you can't just show up to their house and punch them.
Robbery is not a violent crime unless they specifically threaten violence. If you just give someone your stuff when they ask you because you feel threatened that's not enough. You actually have to be threatened for violence to occur.
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.
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.
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.
Because a bank robbery is a robbery, not mere theft. In a robbery, you make a credible threat to use force against another human being. That's hopefully still worse than stealing $x.
Mugging is a bad example because it's not just about financial theft but for a brief period a credible threat to your life itself, so the trauma is clearly bound to scar you for a long time.
Perhaps 800$ fraud on Amazon/Ebay is a more appropriate example.
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