4 ms·

Out of curiosity, what is the financial penalty you think is appropriate for death threats? or for stalking employees?

• brucethemoose2 3y ago
  Jail time. No bail or early release. I don't think a financial penalty is appropriate. A wealthy person might shrug off a $500k fine and keep making death threats... or worse. A $500k fine might ruin a less wealthy person's life, and drive them to make more threats (or worse) because they have so little to lose.
  • olliej 3y ago
    But today that does not happen, so given how people like this are punished today, what is the correct financial penalty? In general threats and stalking are only meaningfully punished when brought up during sentencing for subsequent assault. However it's worth noting when thinking about how "unreasonable" a financial penalty is, that all your future employment options get severely limited. 500k over a lifetime of employment is in the region of 10-15k/year, you can hopefully see how the financial cost of a criminal conviction can easily dwarf these costs. Obviously the impact of a conviction is incredibly variable and filled with all sorts of bias - the financial penalty of a record is lower if you're rich than if you're poor, or social status, race, etc. But in general I would guess any meaningful criminal penalty would easily have a lifetime financial cost of more than 500k.
    • singron 3y ago
      2% interest on 500k is 10k by itself. If you take 40 years to pay the judgement, you will pay a lot more than 500k. For most people, this is basically a second very expensive mortgage. They might use a faster payment schedule and garnish your wages at the legal maximum in your state (usually 25% of earnings after tax).