4 ms·
So if we posit that the money shouldn't go to the police or the government in general, where should it go?
by nathanb 15y ago
So if we posit that the money shouldn't go to the police or the government in general, where should it go?
- there 15y agoschools, like the lotto.
- blhack 15y agoI would also accept: parks, and bike paths. In all honesty, I'd be totally happy if the money went into a fund that was used to throw a block party for the town at the end of the year.
- mquander 15y agoI would point out that by sending lottery money to schools, we're (to some degree) incentivizing schools to produce mathematically illiterate people. One might say the same for sending criminals' money to schools.
- anonymoushn 15y agoI don't think this is true. Lottery revenue is significantly less than all school funding, so while we nominally send lottery revenue to schools, saying that we do so doesn't really mean anything because money is fungible. Schools could only benefit if they could produce so many innumerate (but moneyed) people that the total revenue of the lottery exceeded their total funding.
- uxp 15y agoI would like to see some evidence behind this, as the argument is a straw man in my opinion. In my state, taxes collected on Alcohol and Tobacco are both sent into the pool marked for education, yet we have the lowest smoking rate in the country and are among the 5 states with the lowest number of drinkers. With your logic, the only thing I can attribute to the statistical numbers is a poor education system because not enough people drink or smoke, which indirectly makes the education system worse and fails to teach people to smoke and drink in order to get a better education. I'm sorry. This just doesn't make sense. Education systems don't "profit" from the few alcoholics and few smokers here. Claiming that taxes from lotteries or gambling will incentivize schools into failing to teach children to count or be responsible with money is way too far fetched for me to grasp. The time frame from when a child is in school learning math to when they are legally able to buy a scratch card at the corner gas station is too far apart. If you have some evidence that shows that I am wrong, please let me know. On the other side of the coin, with this article, the ones that are receiving the money taken during drug busts or in this case online gambling ring busts are the ones that end up with the money. It's not laundered through every different department before it hits the city wallet, usually weeks later, not years or even decades.
- mquander 15y agoI more or less agree with you. My original comment was sort of tongue-in-cheek :-) I've heard other people make that same proposition with apparent sincerity, though.
- jonah 15y agoIn some states it is supposed to go to schools, so the police departments route it through the fed and back to them instead.
- jonah 15y agoIn some states it is supposed to go to schools, so the police departments route it through the fed and back to them instead.
- watchandwait 15y agoFunds to provide for the victims of violent crime.
- gwern 15y agoActually some common law precedent for that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deodand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deodand
- ars 15y agoIt should be refunded at the end of the year to all residents (equal amounts to each person). The residents are the ones impacted by crime, so they are the ones who should get reparations.
- lhnn 15y agoIf the money goes to residents, then they have incentive to criminalize things. The money should vanish, or be held in escrow, or something that dimishes the incentive to ANYONE to benefit from someone being penalized.
- ars 15y agoA: That's impossible to do. B: They do not have incentive to criminalize things. A resident who criminalizes looses far more than they could possibly make. A resident who encourages criminal activity also looses more than they could make. And if the money vanishes (for example they burn it) then that reduces inflation which is exactly equal to giving it to everyone in the country. So you might as well give it directly because different area have different levels of crime.
- VladRussian 15y agowhat is wrong with just burning (voiding) the money?
- daniel-cussen 15y agoThat's really the same thing. They can print more, so it ends up in the hands of the state anyhow. Maybe one could buy a commodity (oil, say) and burn it, and maybe plant some trees too.