By now, mostly everyone has heard the bizarre case of the missing "balloon boy." A six year old boy was thought to be floating in a weather balloon that his father had made, when in fact he was actually in the attic for the five hour period they believed he was missing. More information can be found at this article from CNN. This incident turned out to be a hoax. The more information revealed about this family, the stranger this case becomes. It is now clear that the parents are looking to create some fame and earn some money through television appearances. They simply staged this whole event. For hours, the police force was looking for the boy and tried to chase down the runaway balloon. Even days after, this case still has media attention. All of the frenzy was for nothing.
They cannot get away with their ridiculous action, and they are so attention seeking that it is not unlikely for another staged event to occur. What kind of punishment should this family receive? Is a fine to lenient, is jail time to harsh? How can we determine what kind of punishment is appropriate in such bizarre cases?
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i'm not sure what kind of punishment someone gets for "crying wolf" or crying boy in balloon, but we can think about this in terms of opportunity cost. While the police were admittedly fooled but this, think of what else they could have been doing rather than searching for an child-less weather balloon.
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