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No. Assuming we're talking pretty usual traffic tickets and not talking about driving in a grossly negligent way, no one should _ever_ go to jail for traffic ti

No. Assuming we're talking pretty usual traffic tickets and not talking about driving in a grossly negligent way, no one should _ever_ go to jail for traffic tickets. Largely this logic should apply to any malum prohibitum crime. There are plenty of other ways to enforce these fines/tickets.

ksdale 6y ago
Asking non-rhetorically and in good faith, what are the plenty of other ways to enforce fines?
- kube-system 6y ago
  Towing, impound, booting of the vehicle? Revocation of license? Community service? Wage garnishment?
  - ksdale 6y ago
    Thank you! I'm not sure taking away the use of the vehicle is much more humane than prison for someone too poor to pay traffic tickets. Without a vehicle in the US, they likely won't be able to get to work, which all but ensures they won't be able to pay their tickets. Same with revocation of the license, what if they drive anyway? What if they don't show up to community service? What if it's because they need to work? These punishments seem to me to need to be backed up by the threat of prison, or else they're just as toothless as the fines themselves. Wage garnishment seems much better, though it requires that they have an identifiable employer and that they make enough to pay the fine and rent. Getting evicted because of wage garnishment, like the taking away of a vehicle, seems like somewhere near the same level of inhumane as prison time, for a person in that precarious of a situation. And what happens if the employer refuses to garnish the wages? Though I know that some garnishments are income dependent, and employers are usually compliant, so that's probably the best of all worlds. All of your suggestions seem more compassionate than prison, but I still think there is a major question of what happens if there is still non-compliance? Do we let violators go, or do we escalate until we are doing some violence, either through prison or confiscation of property? And if we aren't willing to do violence, should the penalty exist at all in the first place?
    - kube-system 6y ago
      Impound shouldn’t be taken lightly as you point out, but it is the best solution for habitual noncompliance. There’s really no need to escalate to anything else unless you’re dealing with a billionaire with an unlimited number of cars.
  - wahern 6y ago
    For the very poor, a short (few days) stint in jail would be far preferable to having your car impounded. That's the problem with these debates about penalties--for the very poor, any penalty might be life destroying. But then how do you incentivize certain kinds of behavior? And how do you determine when somebody is too poor to be subject to any kind of penalty? Any loopholes you create will always be abused by the rich and powerful because that's the very definition of power--capable of bending the system to your advantage. The real problem is that the poor are very often unplugged from civil society as experienced by the middle classes. They don't have a stake in it. Rather than just throw up our hands, if we're serious about the plight of poverty and its ill effects, we should be more proactive. Keep the penalties, because jail time is something everybody understands, no matter how poor you are. But be proactive about not only enforcement but remediation. Send the darned judges to the people rather than making the people come to the judge. If all the person can afford is a quarter, then take the quarter and thank them for their time and their participation. The goal afterall isn't punishment for punishment's sake, it's to heal the wounds to civil society caused by law breaking, repairing the relationship between the offender and the community, and bringing the offender back into the fold. If the offender doesn't have any sense of a personal relationship with the state, then punishment imposed from a distance can't meet even half of its function. Moreover, no penalty whatsoever, or one with no teeth, does absolutely nothing except reinforce the estrangement, which is worse. It's like leaving the mentally ill on the street to rot to death out of some absurd sense of individual liberty; it functions only to make the non-mentally ill feel more secure in their privileged circumstances, rather than addressing any of the real underlying issues.
    - ksdale 6y ago
      This is excellent, thank you.
    - elbigbad 6y ago
      > For the very poor, a short (few days) stint in jail would be far preferable to having your car impounded. This is probably true, but a car impoundment isn't a first pass at punishment. It would presumably be after someone is a severe repeat offender with no remorse. It's okay to set a maximum punishment, say car impoundment, and then judge from the fact pattern that someone deserves the max punishment. I do hope that the max punishment is less preferable than other hypothetical punishments. > The real problem is that the poor are very often unplugged from civil society as experienced by the middle classes. They don't have a stake in it. Rather than just throw up our hands, if we're serious about the plight of poverty and its ill effects, we should be more proactive. Keep the penalties, because jail time is something everybody understands, no matter how poor you are. But be proactive about not only enforcement but remediation. Send the darned judges to the people rather than making the people come to the judge. If all the person can afford is a quarter, then take the quarter and thank them for their time and their participation. This is a fine take, but is nearly impossible to do wholesale because there are so many entrenched interests. You're talking about a fundamental change (that I agree would be good) to the whole justice system and its goals, which isn't practical in any sense. But in this hypothetical world where the whole justice system is changed, I might agree that jail time is something that could be on the table for speeding tickets. However, that is not going to happen anytime soon, and certainly not all at once. While we ponder how to enact a total overhaul of the justice system, let's make speeding tickets not have jail time as a punishment. > The goal afterall isn't punishment for punishment's sake, it's to heal the wounds to civil society caused by law breaking, repairing the relationship between the offender and the community, and bringing the offender back into the fold. If the offender doesn't have any sense of a personal relationship with the state, then punishment imposed from a distance can't meet even half of its function. Moreover, no penalty whatsoever, or one with no teeth, does absolutely nothing except reinforce the estrangement, which is worse. It's like leaving the mentally ill on the street to rot to death out of some absurd sense of individual liberty; it functions only to make the non-mentally ill feel more secure in their privileged circumstances, rather than addressing any of the real underlying issues. This is super debatable and there are many schools of thought on the goals of punishment. Some say people should be punished for punishment's sake, and indeed the way sentences are handed out in many cases reinforces that this is the prevailing view.
  - SkyBelow 6y ago
    What if they physically resist such an action? Or continue to drive without a license? Eventually you'll end up enforcing the penalty for speeding with either force and likely to include a jail sentence if they resist to the point that force is needed. That the crime on record changes names does not detract from the originating crime being a minor traffic violation.
- zajio1am 6y ago
  > Asking non-rhetorically and in good faith, what are the plenty of other ways to enforce fines? Where i live, fines are enforced same ways like civil damages - bank account suspension, wage deductions, even forced sale of property. But no 'personal' punishment like jail or community service.
- jogjayr 6y ago
  Wage garnishment, collections agents, bankruptcy.
dec0dedab0de 6y ago
I believe Jail time should only apply to people who are actively a threat. I know it's not popular, but I am in favor of some form of corporal punishment over jail time, and even over fines. Fines are meaningless to the wealthy, and devastating to the poor, but getting flogged feels the same to everyone.
- wang_li 6y ago
  A poor driver is an active threat. Fines aren’t devastating to the poor. They don’t pay them, thus this woman.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    Alternately, Case A) A poor person pays their fine, and is devastated by the loss of money. Case B) A poor person can't pay the fine and gets sentenced to prison or gets something repoed, and is devastated by either the criminal record or loss of property.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  Feeling physical pain does make people avoid the situations that cause them. However, they are most effective when the physical pain happens very soon after and it happens consistently. Eg touching a hot stove. You get hurt immediately and every time. This teaches you very quickly not to do that. This makes physical pain not be as effective as a legal punishment through courts though. Courts take a long time to figure out guilt and they aren't always consistent. Being arrested fits far more into that category than anything the courts decide. The other problem with using corporal punishment is that it's very easy to overdo it. It's also very easy to not do enough.
SkyBelow 6y ago
Then you effectively are creating a maximum punishment that could easily be ignored by some of the population. Take speeding tickets. What if a person just decides not to pay and keep speeding? Not that they can't, but they don't. Eventually you lose your licenses. You continue to speed, getting more tickets, and now also getting tickets for driving without a license. You continue to refuse to pay the fines and continue to drive without a license. You aren't driving any differently than when you received your first ticket, so there is no increase in negligence. What option do you think the courts should have to someone who acts like this? Currently there is jail time for contempt of court, but we are taking that away. You can try to forcefully take the money, and if they are earning a paycheck hopefully the business agrees. But what if they don't, or what if the person does not earn income in a way that the state can easily seize it? You could seize their property, take their car, etc. But at that point you are still threatening prison if they physically try to stop the police. Yes, the crime is now escalated to assaulting an officer, not just speeding, but it is all because of that speeding ticket. And if they resist with enough force, they may face lethal force in return. All for a speeding ticket. That's how our legal system is structured. Any punishment is accompanied by a risk of a harsher punishment if it isn't followed. If you ever have a punishment that is not, then you effectively have a law that can be ignored (which we see sometimes with businesses who break laws and pay fines lower than the profit they earned from breaking the law).
- elbigbad 6y ago
  > Then you effectively are creating a maximum punishment that could easily be ignored by some of the population. No, just moving what the maximum punishment is from jail time to a boot on their tire. Conversely, who says jail time is enough? Why not make the maximum even worse than jail? At some point you have to have a max, just advocating that the max is reduced. > Take speeding tickets. What if a person just decides not to pay and keep speeding? Not that they can't, but they don't. Eventually you lose your licenses. You continue to speed, getting more tickets, and now also getting tickets for driving without a license. You continue to refuse to pay the fines and continue to drive without a license. You aren't driving any differently than when you received your first ticket, so there is no increase in negligence. What option do you think the courts should have to someone who acts like this? Currently there is jail time for contempt of court, but we are taking that away. How about a boot on their car? Seizure of their car for failure to have a license? Mandatory community service? That would prevent them from driving without a license, but not put them in jail. Wage garnishment is another one, they can keep speeding all they want > You can try to forcefully take the money, and if they are earning a paycheck hopefully the business agrees. The business doesn't have a say in wage garnishment. > But what if they don't, or what if the person does not earn income in a way that the state can easily seize it? Boot their car. Or seize it. > You could seize their property, take their car, etc. But at that point you are still threatening prison if they physically try to stop the police. Yes, the crime is now escalated to assaulting an officer, not just speeding, but it is all because of that speeding ticket. And if they resist with enough force, they may face lethal force in return. All for a speeding ticket. Assault is not malum prohibitum. Assaulting someone is evil in itself and depending on the facts of the case would mean jail time whether that assault stemmed from a ticket or not. Removing the possibility of someone going to jail altogether is not what I am advocating for. > That's how our legal system is structured. Any punishment is accompanied by a risk of a harsher punishment if it isn't followed. If you ever have a punishment that is not, then you effectively have a law that can be ignored (which we see sometimes with businesses who break laws and pay fines lower than the profit they earned from breaking the law). Not any. Most crimes have a maximum punishment. The maximum punishment for malum prohibitum crimes should be something less than prison. As an aside, it's okay if there are edge cases where you have some rich person with no paycheck and 100 cars and loves to flaunt their ability to speed without repercussions because they can easily afford the ticket (or refuse to pay) or use one of their other cars.

ksdale 6y ago

Asking non-rhetorically and in good faith, what are the plenty of other ways to enforce fines?

kube-system 6y ago
Towing, impound, booting of the vehicle? Revocation of license? Community service? Wage garnishment?
- ksdale 6y ago
  Thank you! I'm not sure taking away the use of the vehicle is much more humane than prison for someone too poor to pay traffic tickets. Without a vehicle in the US, they likely won't be able to get to work, which all but ensures they won't be able to pay their tickets. Same with revocation of the license, what if they drive anyway? What if they don't show up to community service? What if it's because they need to work? These punishments seem to me to need to be backed up by the threat of prison, or else they're just as toothless as the fines themselves. Wage garnishment seems much better, though it requires that they have an identifiable employer and that they make enough to pay the fine and rent. Getting evicted because of wage garnishment, like the taking away of a vehicle, seems like somewhere near the same level of inhumane as prison time, for a person in that precarious of a situation. And what happens if the employer refuses to garnish the wages? Though I know that some garnishments are income dependent, and employers are usually compliant, so that's probably the best of all worlds. All of your suggestions seem more compassionate than prison, but I still think there is a major question of what happens if there is still non-compliance? Do we let violators go, or do we escalate until we are doing some violence, either through prison or confiscation of property? And if we aren't willing to do violence, should the penalty exist at all in the first place?
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Impound shouldn’t be taken lightly as you point out, but it is the best solution for habitual noncompliance. There’s really no need to escalate to anything else unless you’re dealing with a billionaire with an unlimited number of cars.
- wahern 6y ago
  For the very poor, a short (few days) stint in jail would be far preferable to having your car impounded. That's the problem with these debates about penalties--for the very poor, any penalty might be life destroying. But then how do you incentivize certain kinds of behavior? And how do you determine when somebody is too poor to be subject to any kind of penalty? Any loopholes you create will always be abused by the rich and powerful because that's the very definition of power--capable of bending the system to your advantage. The real problem is that the poor are very often unplugged from civil society as experienced by the middle classes. They don't have a stake in it. Rather than just throw up our hands, if we're serious about the plight of poverty and its ill effects, we should be more proactive. Keep the penalties, because jail time is something everybody understands, no matter how poor you are. But be proactive about not only enforcement but remediation. Send the darned judges to the people rather than making the people come to the judge. If all the person can afford is a quarter, then take the quarter and thank them for their time and their participation. The goal afterall isn't punishment for punishment's sake, it's to heal the wounds to civil society caused by law breaking, repairing the relationship between the offender and the community, and bringing the offender back into the fold. If the offender doesn't have any sense of a personal relationship with the state, then punishment imposed from a distance can't meet even half of its function. Moreover, no penalty whatsoever, or one with no teeth, does absolutely nothing except reinforce the estrangement, which is worse. It's like leaving the mentally ill on the street to rot to death out of some absurd sense of individual liberty; it functions only to make the non-mentally ill feel more secure in their privileged circumstances, rather than addressing any of the real underlying issues.
  - ksdale 6y ago
    This is excellent, thank you.
  - elbigbad 6y ago
    > For the very poor, a short (few days) stint in jail would be far preferable to having your car impounded. This is probably true, but a car impoundment isn't a first pass at punishment. It would presumably be after someone is a severe repeat offender with no remorse. It's okay to set a maximum punishment, say car impoundment, and then judge from the fact pattern that someone deserves the max punishment. I do hope that the max punishment is less preferable than other hypothetical punishments. > The real problem is that the poor are very often unplugged from civil society as experienced by the middle classes. They don't have a stake in it. Rather than just throw up our hands, if we're serious about the plight of poverty and its ill effects, we should be more proactive. Keep the penalties, because jail time is something everybody understands, no matter how poor you are. But be proactive about not only enforcement but remediation. Send the darned judges to the people rather than making the people come to the judge. If all the person can afford is a quarter, then take the quarter and thank them for their time and their participation. This is a fine take, but is nearly impossible to do wholesale because there are so many entrenched interests. You're talking about a fundamental change (that I agree would be good) to the whole justice system and its goals, which isn't practical in any sense. But in this hypothetical world where the whole justice system is changed, I might agree that jail time is something that could be on the table for speeding tickets. However, that is not going to happen anytime soon, and certainly not all at once. While we ponder how to enact a total overhaul of the justice system, let's make speeding tickets not have jail time as a punishment. > The goal afterall isn't punishment for punishment's sake, it's to heal the wounds to civil society caused by law breaking, repairing the relationship between the offender and the community, and bringing the offender back into the fold. If the offender doesn't have any sense of a personal relationship with the state, then punishment imposed from a distance can't meet even half of its function. Moreover, no penalty whatsoever, or one with no teeth, does absolutely nothing except reinforce the estrangement, which is worse. It's like leaving the mentally ill on the street to rot to death out of some absurd sense of individual liberty; it functions only to make the non-mentally ill feel more secure in their privileged circumstances, rather than addressing any of the real underlying issues. This is super debatable and there are many schools of thought on the goals of punishment. Some say people should be punished for punishment's sake, and indeed the way sentences are handed out in many cases reinforces that this is the prevailing view.
- SkyBelow 6y ago
  What if they physically resist such an action? Or continue to drive without a license? Eventually you'll end up enforcing the penalty for speeding with either force and likely to include a jail sentence if they resist to the point that force is needed. That the crime on record changes names does not detract from the originating crime being a minor traffic violation.
zajio1am 6y ago
> Asking non-rhetorically and in good faith, what are the plenty of other ways to enforce fines? Where i live, fines are enforced same ways like civil damages - bank account suspension, wage deductions, even forced sale of property. But no 'personal' punishment like jail or community service.
jogjayr 6y ago
Wage garnishment, collections agents, bankruptcy.

dec0dedab0de 6y ago

I believe Jail time should only apply to people who are actively a threat. I know it's not popular, but I am in favor of some form of corporal punishment over jail time, and even over fines. Fines are meaningless to the wealthy, and devastating to the poor, but getting flogged feels the same to everyone.

wang_li 6y ago
A poor driver is an active threat. Fines aren’t devastating to the poor. They don’t pay them, thus this woman.
- Shared404 6y ago
  Alternately, Case A) A poor person pays their fine, and is devastated by the loss of money. Case B) A poor person can't pay the fine and gets sentenced to prison or gets something repoed, and is devastated by either the criminal record or loss of property.
Mirioron 6y ago
Feeling physical pain does make people avoid the situations that cause them. However, they are most effective when the physical pain happens very soon after and it happens consistently. Eg touching a hot stove. You get hurt immediately and every time. This teaches you very quickly not to do that. This makes physical pain not be as effective as a legal punishment through courts though. Courts take a long time to figure out guilt and they aren't always consistent. Being arrested fits far more into that category than anything the courts decide. The other problem with using corporal punishment is that it's very easy to overdo it. It's also very easy to not do enough.

SkyBelow 6y ago

Then you effectively are creating a maximum punishment that could easily be ignored by some of the population. Take speeding tickets. What if a person just decides not to pay and keep speeding? Not that they can't, but they don't. Eventually you lose your licenses. You continue to speed, getting more tickets, and now also getting tickets for driving without a license. You continue to refuse to pay the fines and continue to drive without a license. You aren't driving any differently than when you received your first ticket, so there is no increase in negligence. What option do you think the courts should have to someone who acts like this? Currently there is jail time for contempt of court, but we are taking that away. You can try to forcefully take the money, and if they are earning a paycheck hopefully the business agrees. But what if they don't, or what if the person does not earn income in a way that the state can easily seize it? You could seize their property, take their car, etc. But at that point you are still threatening prison if they physically try to stop the police. Yes, the crime is now escalated to assaulting an officer, not just speeding, but it is all because of that speeding ticket. And if they resist with enough force, they may face lethal force in return. All for a speeding ticket. That's how our legal system is structured. Any punishment is accompanied by a risk of a harsher punishment if it isn't followed. If you ever have a punishment that is not, then you effectively have a law that can be ignored (which we see sometimes with businesses who break laws and pay fines lower than the profit they earned from breaking the law).

elbigbad 6y ago
> Then you effectively are creating a maximum punishment that could easily be ignored by some of the population. No, just moving what the maximum punishment is from jail time to a boot on their tire. Conversely, who says jail time is enough? Why not make the maximum even worse than jail? At some point you have to have a max, just advocating that the max is reduced. > Take speeding tickets. What if a person just decides not to pay and keep speeding? Not that they can't, but they don't. Eventually you lose your licenses. You continue to speed, getting more tickets, and now also getting tickets for driving without a license. You continue to refuse to pay the fines and continue to drive without a license. You aren't driving any differently than when you received your first ticket, so there is no increase in negligence. What option do you think the courts should have to someone who acts like this? Currently there is jail time for contempt of court, but we are taking that away. How about a boot on their car? Seizure of their car for failure to have a license? Mandatory community service? That would prevent them from driving without a license, but not put them in jail. Wage garnishment is another one, they can keep speeding all they want > You can try to forcefully take the money, and if they are earning a paycheck hopefully the business agrees. The business doesn't have a say in wage garnishment. > But what if they don't, or what if the person does not earn income in a way that the state can easily seize it? Boot their car. Or seize it. > You could seize their property, take their car, etc. But at that point you are still threatening prison if they physically try to stop the police. Yes, the crime is now escalated to assaulting an officer, not just speeding, but it is all because of that speeding ticket. And if they resist with enough force, they may face lethal force in return. All for a speeding ticket. Assault is not malum prohibitum. Assaulting someone is evil in itself and depending on the facts of the case would mean jail time whether that assault stemmed from a ticket or not. Removing the possibility of someone going to jail altogether is not what I am advocating for. > That's how our legal system is structured. Any punishment is accompanied by a risk of a harsher punishment if it isn't followed. If you ever have a punishment that is not, then you effectively have a law that can be ignored (which we see sometimes with businesses who break laws and pay fines lower than the profit they earned from breaking the law). Not any. Most crimes have a maximum punishment. The maximum punishment for malum prohibitum crimes should be something less than prison. As an aside, it's okay if there are edge cases where you have some rich person with no paycheck and 100 cars and loves to flaunt their ability to speed without repercussions because they can easily afford the ticket (or refuse to pay) or use one of their other cars.