I've seen a bunch of different ways to handle this. Some people are let go immediately and paid. Others (myself included) were asked to stay on and then some. It depends on the people involved and I think a blanket policy is a poor choice. Some should be escorted out right away. Others should stay and help with a transition, though perhaps with reduced rights.

As for stealing data - I'd love to know how they define data. Is it a list of contacts, some general scripts, and a couple of documents/templates? For what purpose was it taken? In some cases, it's part of a set of "tools" that you may use regularly and would have to re-create elsewhere. Sometimes it's just a set of docs that you want to be able to look at because you invested yourself heavily. If there's no malicious intent, I don't see too much of an issue and (as noted elsewhere in this conversation) it's probably already been copied beforehand in any case. Now if you're taking a contact list because you intend to use that to take business from your former employer or you take something that is actually a piece of code that gives them a decided advantage - that's a different story and I can see that being prosecuted if used.

I'll admit to keeping a copy of some of the scripts I worked on and I'll also admit that it was pretty pointless for me to do so. The only thing they did was take up space on my machine (excepting the couple of times that my prior workplace called and asked for assistance that I was willing to provide 🙂 ). Outside of that, I really don't want to reference old code, documents, procedures, etc from a prior job.

I agree that an immediate escort off of the premises is generally more of a punishment to existing workers than the one leaving, but not all see it that way. I think in once case, someone gave notice before getting the quarterly bonus check and was escorted out immediately. He eventually got the bonus check that he actually deserved, but I don't think he was expecting to leave so soon. We definitely learned from that - wait until _after_ getting your bonus check to turn in your resignation. 😀