$3000 because I stole a book and did something bad ruins my life, and could put me in a room where my personal freedoms are infringed. It is designed to disincentivize me from doing the bad thing.
What you (first responder) are defending is that if you just steal enough of them all at once, and then make enough money from it, you are able to pay the fee and not have your freedoms taken away to do it again, and profit again. This means objectively, there is no disincentive, so that "rule" does completely different things for completely different contexts, and the point is muddied by pretending that "well I paid the fee!" Is the point.
The point is to tell the thing doing the bad thing not to do the bad thing.
This is why I get so frustrated. People are so flipping blinding by dollars and whatabouts that it's just.. like I said, I have to believe for many people it's an inherent unacknowledged miss on what the point of a justice system and a law is, or it's a veiled defense for themselves knowing that, maybe, they would do the same if they could. I have met those people, and I do not want them in positions of power, or leadership.