Punishment According to Means

[Big War Bird]

This question has been rattling around in my head for a while.

Should we in law makes punishments for crimes other misdeeds contingent on a person's ability to pay for the punishment?

For example the fine for driving in the HOV lanes illegally in my state is $105. Perhaps this is a stiff enough penalty to keep the average driver from pushing his luck, but a calculating wealthy person might conclude that the occasional $105 ticket is well worth the cost of shaving significant time off the daily commute. So long he pays the fines there are no other repercussions.

You can apply this scenario to large and small companies too. Exxon recently had a judgement for the Exxon Valdez spill against it significantly reduced, but some on this board agrued that he fine should not have been reduced because Exxon is so large and its yearly profits greatly outstripped what the fine was to be anyway.

I argued just because Exxon was so large did not justify imposing a larger penalty. exxon still had to pay for the clean up and compensate all those that were damaged. If had been a smaller company should they have been let off easier?


So what are your thoughts? I can see the logic of both sides but cannot quite make up my mind.

[sparty]

Interesting concept.

You're saying, "The fine should be 15% of your daily income regardless of socio-economic status so therefore it's equal!" I just don't see the rich wantonly commiting crimes that have that kind of appropraite punishment. Why is a rich man punished more than the poor man?

If a fine is $105 dollars, then it's $105 dollars. Keep in mind that most laws have some sort of escalation of fees and consequences.

What seems MORE appropriate is that white collar crimes of corporate nature should be punished much more harshly depending on the number of people involved. If you, for example, defraud a bank and put 23 branches out of business which results in the layoffs of 185 people then you should receive 185 x the punishment!

It's entirely unfair that corporate malfeasance is largely ignored while petty criminals are treated like mass murderers. Who is doing more damage?

[dwringer]

Heh, when I was in college, the collective total of parking tickets from parking in permit-only lots illegally all semester was far less than the cost of an actual parking permit.

So I certainly am not complaining about leaving things the way they are.

[Viking Prince]

So the concept "equal before the law" now means what?

Bail is set to an appropriate level to assure the court of appearance. This may be sort of where you are thinking. This is not the same as fines or heaven forbid jail time.

The Exxon example is more complicated since you are mixing civil damages and punishment to prevent future transgressions. Damages should never be based on ability to pay. This would mean perversely that the very poor need not follow the law. This leaves the punitive aspect of the civil damages.

For example: Small corporations are already tempted to get away with stuff that a larger corporation would be noticed and caught in the act. The small company which breaks even and has almost no capital commits 1000 eggregious acts. They are noticed one at a time and damages ($1) and punitive damages ($10) are set and paid for a total of $11,000. Suppose a larger company which is very profitable and has large liquid cash reserves commits 1 act and is caught. This company can afford to pay $1,000,000 as punishment. To suggest proportionating the penalty to the company size would magnify the folly.