Punishment Commensurate with the Crime

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we believe that any punishment meted out should be commensurate with the crime or other circumstances that necessitated the punishment in the first place. More specifically, while we will deal harshly with offenders, we do not believe that talking during a movie should be a capital crime, and certainly that citizens should not take it into their own hands to harass or injure the perpetrators. We urge our citizens to refer such cases to their local GPD office, where the case will be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. We also believe that for crimes of stupidity (such as this one, in which the perpetrator attempted to steal a fire engine and drive cross-country) the punishment needs to focus more on reforming the criminal than on punishing them for punishment's sake. If we can just teach them to have more common sense then perhaps we won't have to punish them later on!