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That's why I think fines should be a % of some wealth value of the law breaker. I have always though for example that here in Mexico, traffic fines should be a

That's why I think fines should be a % of some wealth value of the law breaker. I have always though for example that here in Mexico, traffic fines should be a % of the "yellow book value" of your car. Say, for passing a light in red, you get 5%. If you have a $1600 VW bug, then 5% of that will deffinitely hurt you. Similarly, if you have a $256,000 Ferrari, 5% will still be meaningful for you. Otherwise, fines end up being just "the price of making business" or the price of speeding for wealthy people.

pwg 8y ago
This reason is why, in some parts of the US, traffic court convictions for moving violations (i.e., run red light) carries both a monetary fine and a demerit points allocation against your license. Exceed some small demerit points limit over a defined time period and your can be ordered into driver school or have your license suspended. https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/drivers/#points_you.asp https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/drivers/#points_you.asp With the points system, a "rich dude" who see's a $500 red light fine as pocket change can't simply run red lights as long as they see fit. If the monetary fine is not itself a deterrence, the demerit points then become the deterrence.
- DangitBobby 8y ago
  Then what is the point of the fine at all, if the demerit points turn out to be the real deterrent? And if the cash is also supposed to be a real deterrent, why not make it so for said rich dude?
  - pwg 8y ago
    The cynical viewpoint says the fine is there for 'revenue generation' purposes.
    - DangitBobby 8y ago
      You're right, of course. But a progressive income-based fine would generate even more revenue and wouldn't disproportionately affect those with lower income.
mruts 8y ago
The natural conclusion for that is that all punishment be that way. Or maybe we should give out fines based on expected life-time income. So if you're young, you'll get a huge fine. Or maybe we could also hand down prison sentences like that. If you're young and steal a candy bar we can send you to jail proportionally longer than if you're old. Of course none of this makes sense, and fines based on your income is a terrible, awful idea.
- luckylion 8y ago
  > Or maybe we could also hand down prison sentences like that. If you're young and steal a candy bar we can send you to jail proportionally longer than if you're old. Don't we do that somewhat based on income, only it's reversed? If you're poor, you get a harsher sentence - we might as well make it official.
- fwip 8y ago
  Why is it an awful idea? Fines are meant as a deterrent. Flat fines are either devastating for poor people or meaningless to rich people, or both. Fines that scale with income or wealth allow reasonable deterrents to rich and poor people alike.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > Fines are meant as a deterrent. No they're not. They're meant as a price. If they were meant as an unconditional deterrent then the penalty for everything should be death plus all of your assets. That would maximize deterrence (and require us to be a lot more careful about what we pass laws against), but that's not what we're really after. What we're trying to do is to keep the bad thing at a manageable level, which is exactly what proportionate penalties do, especially fines. There are only a few crimes where the most important thing is deterrence, but those are the things we don't use fines for to begin with. For example, there is no fine for murder, the penalty is death, or life in prison, because we really are out to maximize deterrence there. For everything else, if the fine is set appropriately then the cost to society of someone violating the law is less than the amount of the fine times the probability of being caught. If you then want to pay the price to do the thing, great -- we'll take your money and use it to save some lives somewhere else or do some other socially beneficial thing, and since you're paying more than the cost of the damage you're doing, everybody comes out ahead. And if the fine isn't high enough to pay for the damage being done then it should be higher for everyone.
dboreham 8y ago
At least for a time, in the late 80's, in England some traffic fines were determined by the offender's income.
luckylion 8y ago
We're doing something like that in Germany where some fines are calculated by how much you're making in a day, so you'd get "30 days' worth". Unfortunately, they aren't actually looking a your assets and income, but make a guess and if it's too high, you can provide proof that it's not accurate. It's usually far too low when you're in the top 5%.
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  > Unfortunately, they aren't actually looking a your assets and income Wisdom of the policy aside, why is it implemented in such a seemingly insane way? Why not just look at the equivalent of last year's W2? While not perfectly representative of steady-state income, it's what many other income-based systems do and you can easily have a petition process for claiming that that year's income is unrepresentative.
  - luckylion 8y ago
    Mostly because of privacy laws. A court can't simply access tax documents, even if it might be helpful in this case. If they wanted to, they'd have to go the official route and the judge ruling on that would weigh the interest of the individual to keep his info private against the interest of the court to gain information. This obviously is easy when the documents are related to the crime, but as the crime/misdemeanor has already been decided upon and only the sentencing is to be done, privacy is usually given more weight.

pwg 8y ago

This reason is why, in some parts of the US, traffic court convictions for moving violations (i.e., run red light) carries both a monetary fine and a demerit points allocation against your license. Exceed some small demerit points limit over a defined time period and your can be ordered into driver school or have your license suspended. https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/drivers/#points_you.asp https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/drivers/#points_you.asp With the points system, a "rich dude" who see's a $500 red light fine as pocket change can't simply run red lights as long as they see fit. If the monetary fine is not itself a deterrence, the demerit points then become the deterrence.

DangitBobby 8y ago
Then what is the point of the fine at all, if the demerit points turn out to be the real deterrent? And if the cash is also supposed to be a real deterrent, why not make it so for said rich dude?
- pwg 8y ago
  The cynical viewpoint says the fine is there for 'revenue generation' purposes.
  - DangitBobby 8y ago
    You're right, of course. But a progressive income-based fine would generate even more revenue and wouldn't disproportionately affect those with lower income.

mruts 8y ago

The natural conclusion for that is that all punishment be that way. Or maybe we should give out fines based on expected life-time income. So if you're young, you'll get a huge fine. Or maybe we could also hand down prison sentences like that. If you're young and steal a candy bar we can send you to jail proportionally longer than if you're old. Of course none of this makes sense, and fines based on your income is a terrible, awful idea.

luckylion 8y ago
> Or maybe we could also hand down prison sentences like that. If you're young and steal a candy bar we can send you to jail proportionally longer than if you're old. Don't we do that somewhat based on income, only it's reversed? If you're poor, you get a harsher sentence - we might as well make it official.
fwip 8y ago
Why is it an awful idea? Fines are meant as a deterrent. Flat fines are either devastating for poor people or meaningless to rich people, or both. Fines that scale with income or wealth allow reasonable deterrents to rich and poor people alike.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > Fines are meant as a deterrent. No they're not. They're meant as a price. If they were meant as an unconditional deterrent then the penalty for everything should be death plus all of your assets. That would maximize deterrence (and require us to be a lot more careful about what we pass laws against), but that's not what we're really after. What we're trying to do is to keep the bad thing at a manageable level, which is exactly what proportionate penalties do, especially fines. There are only a few crimes where the most important thing is deterrence, but those are the things we don't use fines for to begin with. For example, there is no fine for murder, the penalty is death, or life in prison, because we really are out to maximize deterrence there. For everything else, if the fine is set appropriately then the cost to society of someone violating the law is less than the amount of the fine times the probability of being caught. If you then want to pay the price to do the thing, great -- we'll take your money and use it to save some lives somewhere else or do some other socially beneficial thing, and since you're paying more than the cost of the damage you're doing, everybody comes out ahead. And if the fine isn't high enough to pay for the damage being done then it should be higher for everyone.

dboreham 8y ago

At least for a time, in the late 80's, in England some traffic fines were determined by the offender's income.

luckylion 8y ago

We're doing something like that in Germany where some fines are calculated by how much you're making in a day, so you'd get "30 days' worth". Unfortunately, they aren't actually looking a your assets and income, but make a guess and if it's too high, you can provide proof that it's not accurate. It's usually far too low when you're in the top 5%.

wutbrodo 8y ago
> Unfortunately, they aren't actually looking a your assets and income Wisdom of the policy aside, why is it implemented in such a seemingly insane way? Why not just look at the equivalent of last year's W2? While not perfectly representative of steady-state income, it's what many other income-based systems do and you can easily have a petition process for claiming that that year's income is unrepresentative.
- luckylion 8y ago
  Mostly because of privacy laws. A court can't simply access tax documents, even if it might be helpful in this case. If they wanted to, they'd have to go the official route and the judge ruling on that would weigh the interest of the individual to keep his info private against the interest of the court to gain information. This obviously is easy when the documents are related to the crime, but as the crime/misdemeanor has already been decided upon and only the sentencing is to be done, privacy is usually given more weight.