The suitable result would have been jail, or at least house arrest or probation. That’s what you see when crime is committed in the course of debt collection: for example, a man in Newfoundland was sentenced to one year in jail in 2022 for participating in a group break-in during which “PAY THE DEBT” was written on the victim’s walls (among other acts of vandalism) and during which he stole some cannabis from the house; the organized crime factor worsened his case, but he was a young, first-time offender like E.A., and he didn’t physically attack anyone. He was a citizen though, and he was evidently not before a soft judge, resulting in a much more appropriate sentence.








