And the wealthy can more easily absord the loss of a license, paying taxi fares or a car service for transport.
My point being: it’s an illusion to imagine that such a scheme will even the players on the playing field.
Nor should it. Government’s responsibility should be to create a level playing field, but not to mess with the players thereon.
If we are arguing that rich people should be fined more because they make more money, then community service hours need to be reduced for rich people.
Person A and person B both break the law. Both are sentenced to 10 hours of community service. Person A earns $150,000 per year; person B earns $25,000 per year. A’s time is worth, therefore, six times as much as B. Therefore, A is being punished six times more than B, and for the same offense.
Sounds like a pretty good “equal protection” argument for the Supreme Court to hash out.
Regards,
Shodan
If the punishment is so sever, why did the poor person fail to follow the law? The answer to your question is: because the poor person chose to break the law.
Are you suggesting that because a person is poor they should be punished less severely for their crimes?
It’s amazing how many people seem to ignore the fact that a crime has been committed, and not even one of those “stole a loaf of bread to feed my starving family” kind of crimes. Unless some how the poor NEED to speed? I know Maverick and Goose did.
Personally, I don’t care about that. I care about getting bad drivers to either pay attention to the rules of the road or getting them off the road entirely. The idea of the scaling citation fee isn’t (necessarily) to soak the rich, but to make the punishment for breaking the law a real one to the individual so that they have incentive to change their behavior. But imposing two different fees to two different people for the same infraction is distasteful to me, so a progressively harsher penalty based on previous offenses is more appropriate, even if it’s just something simple like four infractions, license revocation, then jail time. Presumably once the individual gets to where the punishment is ‘real’ to them, they’ll change their behavior, whether it’s to drive safely or to pay someone else to drive safely for them. If they can’t change their behavior, then they get removed from society.
This has the added side benefit of collecting more money from someone whose ‘real punishment’ line is drawn further along.
But then again, white collar job is more likely to require travel to other countries. A criminal record might impair that.
As an example, Canada considers a DUI a more serious crime, and will block travel for Americans with DUIs. So if two people both get a DUI, and one needs to travel to Canada as part of his employment, but the other doesn’t, are they both being punished the same?
One thing I’ve found over the years- as my income went up, my ability to take time off increased. A week off from work when I was making minimum wage would’ve meant I couldn’t have paid rent… but a week off, now? For one thing, I’d still have my job waiting for me… and even if I wasn’t salaried, I could still easily absorb the income loss.
Get your income up high enough, and you can earn money without even working.
So, no. Try again.
Because your time is worth more, exactly like I said. Being penalized a week’s worth is a more severe penalty when your week is worth more. Therefore, you are being more severely penalized.
And are therefore being denied the equal protection of the law. It is exactly the same as fining one person $3000 and another $500 for the same offense.
Regards,
Shodan
Not at all. The idea behind income-rated fines is that there’s the same amount of time expended on each offender’s part.
If both are out sweeping streets, their efforts are worth exactly the same to the community. Sure, A may be able to sell his specialized skills in a specialized market at much better price, but as it happens, the community just doesn’t have a need for a left-handed glass-blower at the going rate. Just a lot of streets to sweep.
Is the purpose to take an hour of a person’s time or get the streets swept?
Could a rich person hire someone to do their community service for them?
If I accrue enough violations to have my drivers license revoked, I could quite possibly lose my job.
If Bill Gates lost his license, he just hires a chauffer.
Fair? No, not in the sense that it’s equally punishing. Should Bill Gates be forced onto unemployment if he loses his driver’s license?
If fines are meant to be purely punitive(whichy fines generally are) I think they MUST be linked to the wealth of the payee.
The problem with a flat rate fine is that if it was set at a level which was punitive to the ‘average guy’ then it could have neglible puntive effect on some defendants and disproportinate punitive effect on others.
On the other hand though it can be seen as unjust that someone is made to pay a large sum of money for a minor offence due to their means.
My own feeling is that fines should be linked to means, but that impsoing very large fines due to someone’s wealth should be approached with caution (for example a person’s bwealth is not generally fixed and fines can have different financial effects even on the people of the same net worth).
What if the person making $100,000 is also living paycheck to paycheck?
How do you propose we assess what is financially painful to each individual? Or do you assume everyone making $100,000 a year is exactly the same in every way?
A person making $20,000 a year might be living at home with his parents, using their car and eating their food. His cost of living is zero. If anyone should face a steep fine it’s that guy.
But a person making $100,000 might be supporting 10 disabled children and caring for two sets of aging parents. Oh and he also adopts wounded puppies and kittens.
Did I also mention the guy making $100,000 is working on the next big cancer breakthrough? Taking him away from his research for a week could set his research back years!
Emotional manipulation is fun.
Not if you recognize that time is all we have on this Earth, and that its worth is not readily or usefully measured in dollar terms.
So should put a young person in jail longer than an old person?
Assign a young person more community service than an old person?
Of if as you said, time on this Earth can’t be readily measured in dollar terms, is it really fair to take anyone’s time? How do we know they won’t drop dead right after their sentence is up?
Not as a punitive deterrent.
This question has already been addressed. The 5 years at the beginning of your life is not less valuable than the 5 years at the end of your life.
That makes the false assumption that everyone lives the same amount of time.
If two 18 year olds commit the same crime, but one has Huntington’s Disease, can you really say 5 years of their life is the same?
ETA
How do you know that? More importantly, how do you MEASURE that?
Around here, jail time or community service are no longer options. They want their money, baby. Until then, no license for you!
A couple of weeks ago, a street light was malfunctioning, switching from green to flashing red and back, with no yellow warning. The cops popped my friend when the light suddenly changed to flashing red. She had now way of stopping. The cop was hiding hoping to write bogus tickets. Why was he not out directing traffic through this dangerously malfunctioning signal? I’ll tell you why not, the government is broke and the priority is to beat the bushes for revenue by any means possible.
This is documented of course? Would this be yet another unsupported accusation of police malfeasance by Stan Shmenge. You seem to be the sole witness to huge numbers of such instances.
So cite?
It is like the argument if you kill a 10 year old, is it the same crime as if you killed a 90 year old. One you are taking a couple years off. The kid, you may be taking 80 years away. Is it the same crime?