Comment by freedomben
1 day ago
I was originally thinking you were being way too harsh with your "punish criminally" take, but I must admit, you're winning me over. I think we would need to be careful to ensure we never (or realistically, very rarely) convict an innocent person, but this is in many cases outright theft/fraud when someone is making money or being "compensated" for producing work that is fraudulent.
For people who think this is too harsh, just remember we aren't talking about undergrads who cheat on a course paper here. We're talking about people who were given money (often from taxpayers) that committed fraud. This is textbook white collar crime, not some kid being lazy. At a minimum we should be taking all that money back from them and barring them from ever receiving grant money again. In some cases I think fines exceeding the money they received would be appropriate.
Thank you for the comment!
I think the negative reaction people have comes from fear of punishment for human error, but fraud (meaning the real legal term, not colloquially) requires knowledge and intent.
That legal standard means that the risk of ruinous consequences for a 'lazy kid' who took a foolish shortcut is very low. It also requires that a prosecutor look at the circumstances and come to the conclusion that they can meet this standard in a courtroom. The bar is pretty high.
That said, it's very important to note that fraud has a pretty high rearrest (not just did it, but got arrested for it) rate between 35-50%. So when it gets to the point that someone has taken that step, a slap on the wrist simply isn't going to work. Ultimately, when that happens every piece of work they've touched, and every piece of work that depended on their work, gets called into question. The dependency graph affected by a single fraudster can be enormous.