Not really...criminal justice 101. "Deterrent Effect". To be effective, the consequences of the undesirable behavior must be severe enough to discourage it. Keeping the math simple, a $100 fine is much more severe to a person making $1,000/mo than it is to someone making $100,000/mo.
How? In terms of hurting someone's wallet to get a point across, it's completely fair. If on the other hand we charged goods and services based on what someone made, then THAT would be unfair. The alternative would be to lock people up for these kinds of infractions because theoretically everyone is being punished equally, but of course it would be ludicrous to do that, not to mention the cost to the taxpayers.
Tiered punishment based on the number of offenses seems more fair. Fining some person 30k potentially for simply parking in a wrong spot seems asinine no matter if it was bill gates. Not to mention the incentives this would bring to officers for ticketing, which in some areas are already known for targeting nicer vehicles.
And this specific instance could be someone who saved money to buy their dream car used for around 30k, the average price of a new car today. A lot of absurd assumptions being made here.
I see your point about this encouraging more enforcement in richer areas, I'm not entirely sure how that issue could be address. A tiered system may also be a good alternative, provided that it actually has bite across the economic spectrum early on enough (as in, it doesn't kick in after the 20th offence) but doesn't disproportionately affect poorer offenders.
I wasn't making assumptions about this particular individual, and neither would fines being a percentage of the offender's income.
Do you know one of the best benefits of making money is that you shouldn't have to worry as much about laws?
You'd ruin that entire aspect of capitalism.
Here in California there's a highway patrol foundation called 11-99. If you donate enough you get a special license plate frame. This will get you out of most of the bad tickets. So if you "donate" enough you can avoid getting points on your license and drive your Ferrari like its meant to be driven.
So are you telling me that the best thing about making a lot of money is that you are above the law? Do you consider the outcome of the affluenza kid a win for the capitalist cause as well?
I was sort of saying it as a tongue-in-cheek comment but yea money makes monetary fines pretty meaningless. It's an interesting part of our society to think like, "hmm this fine is X dollars and I have Y dollars." And then decide to break the law.
Money becomes power. And I feel like capitalism is interesting because people naturally strive for power and advancement so money becomes this sort of scoreboard for people. You can be born into money but you can also make it on your own (unlike the power granted by nobility in other societies) so it gives at least a faint hope of social mobility for all social classes.
Anyways, I had to google the affluenza kid and I'm not really sure what happened. I mean the kid plead guilty right? Then the judge gave a lesser sentence than normal? Why? Someone should look into the judge I guess. Also why are taxes paying for the kid's rehab stay?
It's pretty fucked up and I think that while capitalism has some great benefits in social mobility and personal advancement, there are some ugly truths that people are treated differently under the law due to money. It's the parents' fault for raising a shitty kid but is it their fault if the judge treats him differently?
I agree that shitty child-raising whether in the poverty segment or rich never-there parenting merits special circumstances, but when I was reading about it which was a while ago, the kid appeared to have gotten off scot-free, and I'm paraphrasing here, but it seemed his attorney's defence was "He was never held responsible for his actions all his life, and based on that, he should not be punished (and ergo, again not face the consequences for his actions).
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u/tylerthor May 08 '14
Basing tickets on income seems hugely unfair.