I can understand why all the harsh penalty figures are being bandied about - the authorities are trying to send the message that anyone else they catch doing that kind of thing will also be severly dealt with. Deterence through fear of the consequences.

Unfortunately, if they can only apply this kind of punishment to the ones they can catch, serious criminals have nothing to fear. The overt in-your-face nature of the attacks is why he was caught, not the methods he used.

The message really just comes out as "If you're a crap loser, we'll send you down!"