[Proziam]

If I steal hundreds of thousands of dollars (salary, plus research grants and other funds) and produce fake output, what do you think is appropriate?

To me, it's no different than stealing a car or tricking an old lady into handing over her fidelity account. You are stealing, and society says stealing is a criminal act.

[WarmWash]

We have a civil court system to handle stuff like this already.

[Proziam]

Stealing more than a few thousand dollars is a felony, and felonies are handled in criminal court, not civil.

EDIT - The threshold amount varies. Sometimes it's as low as a few hundred dollars. However, the point stands on its own, because there's no universe where the sum in question is in misdemeanor territory.

[wat10000]

We also have a criminal court system to handle stuff like this.