This seeming disparity in the penalties had some people seeing red, and several letters to the Forum page recently.
'Is housebreaking a more serious crime than drink driving, defying driving bans and killing innocent pedestrians? How do you justify the discrepancy?' asked retired bank officer Kow Yew San.
But there are many factors a sentencing judge takes into account and the public may not always have the full picture, said Singapore Management University law professor Chandra Mohan.
And comparing crimes isn't as simple as just weighing the penalties meted out.
Said National University of Singapore law professor Michael Hor: 'If we compare harms, one might readily conclude that the death of a human being is more serious than property loss, but if we take into account the mental culpability, the picture is less clear. What if the death was unintended and unforeseen, but that property loss was deliberate and calculated?'
There are other dimensions, he said. Like whether someone has a string of previous convictions for similar offences, and the value of the loss amount.
The burglar, Shashilaran Balakrishnan, 42, faced a total of 43 charges, pointed out NUS law academic Chan Wing Cheong.
These were mostly for housebreaking and theft by night - which comes with a mandatory minimum sentence of two years' jail. He also had 48 previous convictions.