Posted on 03/18/2018 6:31:28 PM PDT by Simon Green
If Mark Zuckerberg and a janitor who works at Facebook’s headquarters each received a speeding ticket while driving home from work, they’d each owe the government the same amount of money. Mr. Zuckerberg wouldn’t bat an eye.
The janitor is another story.
For people living on the economic margins, even minor offenses can impose crushing financial obligations, trapping them in a cycle of debt and incarceration for nonpayment. In Ferguson, Mo., for example, a single $151 parking violation sent a black woman struggling with homelessness into a seven-year odyssey of court appearances, arrest warrants and jail time connected to her inability to pay.
Across America, one-size-fits-all fines are the norm, which I demonstrate in an article for the University of Chicago Law Review. Where judges do have wiggle room to choose the size of a fine, mandatory minimums and maximums often tie their hands. Some states even prohibit consideration of a person’s income. And when courts are allowed to take finances into account, they frequently fail to do so.
Other places have saner methods. Finland and Argentina, for example, have tailored fines to income for almost 100 years. The most common model, the “day fine,” scales sanctions to a person’s daily wage. A small offense like littering might cost a fraction of a day’s pay. A serious crime might swallow a month’s paycheck. Everyone pays the same proportion of their income.
For a justice system committed to treating like offenders alike, scaling fines to income is a matter of basic fairness. Making everyone pay the same sticker price is evenhanded on the surface, but only if you ignore the consequences of a fine on the life of the person paying. The flat fine threatens poor people with financial ruin while letting rich people break the law without meaningful repercussions.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
There should be the same punishment for the same crime, that’s fair.
So go live there.
And when the government violates someone’s constitutional rights, what portion of its tax revenue should go to the victim?
Should the sentences be the same for rich and poor when convicted of murder, robbery, kidnapping, perjury, fraud, etc.?
Maxine will soon propose that every time a black person gets fined, for anything, three white people should be required to pay the fine...With 2/3 of the fine awarded to the black person as reparations for the chains-of-slavery they currently live in...
By the same logic, a young person should serve a longer prison term for murder than an old person because proportionally, that young murderer has more life to offer.
Another thought: limo gets caught speeding with a billionaire in the back. Fine based off the limo driver income or the income of the billionaire but given to the driver?
>>It truly doesnt pay to try to get ahead and make something of yourself
Making something of yourself really should be more than just a bunch of money.
Kind of reminds me of how mining and logging companies paid their workers (blacks and whites) by company scrip, and the only place the scrip could be used was at the company store.
"You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"
My maserati does 185. I lost my license now I don’t drive. I have a limo, ride in the back... life’s been good
Let’s make it easy. 5 lashes from the whip for speeding. 20 lashes for reckless driving. Lose a hand to the hatchet for robbery. Death for murder and rape. Lifetime in a gulag for being a Liberal.
Part two is conditioning the public to accept excessive penalties against the wealthy.
-PJ
NYT must be having a stupid contest.
14th amendment says otherwise.
Ok, how about not making the penalty a monetary one, and instead, have it be a certain number of hours of community service??? The cops always say, tickets aren’t about the money right????
And a gallon of milk $1.79 or $8.25.....Is that where it’s going?
Actually if they are speeding the same, damn right they should.
We all live under the same laws. We dont change them because of any characteristics of the individual. Which is why i am against any special rights and laws for women, minorities, perverts, and any other special classes.
Men as a group already pay all the taxes. Over the course of their working lives men pay in way more than they take out. Women as a group over their lifetimes, take out way more than they pay in.
If ya’ can’t do the fine, don’t do the crime.
Granted. But it is discouraging when I pay a marginal tax rate of about 50%. I work 12-14 hour days, nights, weekends, and holidays so someone else can enjoy the fruits of my labor. Gets old real fast.
I’m right there with you. I would like to retire in the next few years if the stinking government will let me keep enough of MY earnings to do so.
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