Justice - American style

[Dystopia]

And I bet your opinion would change if that bribe bought his pressing false charges against you.

-- and what stories like this make me feel:

I think you have a misrepresented view of how I feel. I agree with the latter part of your post wholeheartedly. Crooked politicians should be punished severely.

The only "point" that I made was a disagreement with the OP in regards to the bribery being worse than a home invasion coupled with an abduction.

There are few things worse than an interloper in my house.

To be fair I was only addressing that the victim doesn't dictate the sentence - This means that asking person X to put themselves in a potential situation of crime victim is not an accurate way to solve the equation... Rather you should ask "how should society and the law value this crime in a degree of seriousness compared to other? - This crime is more serious because it violates more important human rights and principles than the other" - This would be the right answer in one of my exams [I made a very brief answer to not bore you out] - I hope that cleared things out.

We don't punish crimes because they make the victim feel bad, rather because it hurts society and harms our principles - We don't punish John because he killed Abel, we punish John because he broke the law, he killed, and that makes him a danger for society.

By the way, breaking and abduction could be less serious than bribe depending on many factors - For example, in my country breaking into someone's house and abducting someone will probably get you 10-15 years, less if you show regret and convince the judge to be merciful - A bribe is maybe 1-3 years and almost no one gets convicted to effective jailtime, rather suspended time - But if you commit, let's say, 50 bribes and 1 breaking + abducting the bribe as a continuous crime becomes more serious.