2 ms·

Jail should be only reserved for a time when a person is refusing to change their behavior to stop being a risk to themselves or society. It is not and should

Jail should be only reserved for a time when a person is refusing to change their behavior to stop being a risk to themselves or society. It is not and should not be used as a punishment. This is ridiculous.

Dylan16807 6y ago
So write a ticket the first time, and if they don't change then jail for endangering others, right? I don't think people are especially concerned about the exact punishment schedule here, they just want consequences that result in safe cars, much like with drunk driving laws. Someone mentioning jail doesn't mean they want it as an immediate first-line consequence. It's a simplification, so please recognize that before crying 'ridiculous'.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  No, then you confiscate the car. Walk home and you will be a lot smarter by the time you get there.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    That sounds like a bigger punishment!
    - danShumway 6y ago
      Taking away someone's transportation would be a bigger punishment than locking them inside a prison? Prisoners also can't drive cars around, so jail is a strict superset of that punishment. I'm not going to take a hard position on it, but I'm at least mildly skeptical that jail would ever be appropriate for something that can be just as easily solved by progressive fines and revoking a license. Jails in the US are really awful, so they'd need to produce great results for me to prefer putting someone into one of them. And it's not clear to me that they even reduce recidivism rates for crimes of this nature any more than other alternatives. We should be pretty hesitant to send people to prison. Particularly with the knowledge of how calls for increased "tough on crime" policing typically go in America -- well meaning people should keep in mind that advocating for the expansion of carceral laws often results in unintended consequences.
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        Jail is much more short term than prison. It can easily be a smaller punishment than having to buy a replacement car. Especially if it's something like this, where you might only spend a day or two there and have community service on top.
        namibj 6y ago
        You can have your car back if you fix the headlights. Make it be a mandatory appointment to show up at after e.g. a week and get your car checked for having fixed your headlighs. Also, have a choice of getting your car booted with some electronic boot that you can unlock after sunrise, or getting your car towed. You'll have to show up for the checkup anyways, so that's when you can drop the boot off. Either way, imprisonment won't fix the problem, which is a faulty vehicle. The inconvenience of not being able to drive the car until after sunrise, along with a typical towing/booting fee, should be sufficient incentive to not drive with faulty lights, given how easy they would be for police cars to measure/detect with an inexpensive, small camera unit at a proper location on the police car, which then signals the driver about a suspected violation. Passing a police car that doesn't have anything better to do, while you have your faulty lights on, should be common enough to make driving like that a risk too high.
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        > You can have your car back if you fix the headlights. Okay, so now we're talking about a completely different scenario that isn't confiscation. Why am I getting downvoted for that? Jeez.
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  You are correct, I dont care the punishment schedule as you put it, but here if you keep avoiding paying a ticket they will jail you for a few days. I have had a relative go to jail for not paying a ticket, it wasnt fun but hes highly unlikely to not pay a driving ticket or make the same mjstake. Whats worse is I think he paid for it but somehow the wrong county was involved or some mess its been a few years so I cant remember what the mixup was.
giancarlostoro 6y ago
I didnt mean to imply they would immediately go to jail, but usually laws come with consequences and jail would eventually be up in that tree of consequences.

Dylan16807 6y ago

So write a ticket the first time, and if they don't change then jail for endangering others, right? I don't think people are especially concerned about the exact punishment schedule here, they just want consequences that result in safe cars, much like with drunk driving laws. Someone mentioning jail doesn't mean they want it as an immediate first-line consequence. It's a simplification, so please recognize that before crying 'ridiculous'.

jacquesm 6y ago
No, then you confiscate the car. Walk home and you will be a lot smarter by the time you get there.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  That sounds like a bigger punishment!
  - danShumway 6y ago
    Taking away someone's transportation would be a bigger punishment than locking them inside a prison? Prisoners also can't drive cars around, so jail is a strict superset of that punishment. I'm not going to take a hard position on it, but I'm at least mildly skeptical that jail would ever be appropriate for something that can be just as easily solved by progressive fines and revoking a license. Jails in the US are really awful, so they'd need to produce great results for me to prefer putting someone into one of them. And it's not clear to me that they even reduce recidivism rates for crimes of this nature any more than other alternatives. We should be pretty hesitant to send people to prison. Particularly with the knowledge of how calls for increased "tough on crime" policing typically go in America -- well meaning people should keep in mind that advocating for the expansion of carceral laws often results in unintended consequences.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      Jail is much more short term than prison. It can easily be a smaller punishment than having to buy a replacement car. Especially if it's something like this, where you might only spend a day or two there and have community service on top.
      - namibj 6y ago
        You can have your car back if you fix the headlights. Make it be a mandatory appointment to show up at after e.g. a week and get your car checked for having fixed your headlighs. Also, have a choice of getting your car booted with some electronic boot that you can unlock after sunrise, or getting your car towed. You'll have to show up for the checkup anyways, so that's when you can drop the boot off. Either way, imprisonment won't fix the problem, which is a faulty vehicle. The inconvenience of not being able to drive the car until after sunrise, along with a typical towing/booting fee, should be sufficient incentive to not drive with faulty lights, given how easy they would be for police cars to measure/detect with an inexpensive, small camera unit at a proper location on the police car, which then signals the driver about a suspected violation. Passing a police car that doesn't have anything better to do, while you have your faulty lights on, should be common enough to make driving like that a risk too high.
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        > You can have your car back if you fix the headlights. Okay, so now we're talking about a completely different scenario that isn't confiscation. Why am I getting downvoted for that? Jeez.
giancarlostoro 6y ago
You are correct, I dont care the punishment schedule as you put it, but here if you keep avoiding paying a ticket they will jail you for a few days. I have had a relative go to jail for not paying a ticket, it wasnt fun but hes highly unlikely to not pay a driving ticket or make the same mjstake. Whats worse is I think he paid for it but somehow the wrong county was involved or some mess its been a few years so I cant remember what the mixup was.

giancarlostoro 6y ago

I didnt mean to imply they would immediately go to jail, but usually laws come with consequences and jail would eventually be up in that tree of consequences.