POLL: What do you think of adding skyhigh fines to prison sentences?

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Inspired by Ragusa's most recent topic in which a woman is mentioned pottentially going to be sentenced for 12 years in prison *and* $1 million fine for being in Iraq and paying with money for what she was buying there, I ask you:

What do you think of adding skyhigh fines to prison sentences?

How is someone supposed to gather $1M after spending years in prison? What job will he/she get to pay such a ridiculously high sum? What about the families?

Edit: Inspired this time by Depaara's reply: if you make exceptions or you think something in there should be conditional, post your observations, please.

[ September 24, 2003, 18:59: Message edited by: chevalier ]

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 4 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: What do you think of adding skyhigh fines to prison sentences? (4 votes.)

What do you think of adding skyhigh fines to prison sentences? (Choose 1)
* I'm perfectly OK with that. - 75% (3)
* They should be high but not this high. - 0% (0)
* Fine as an alternative to prison and/or petty fines for petty crimes. - 25% (1)
* No fines, prison only. - 0% (0)
* Results. - 0% (0)

 

For this particular crime, it's stupid, but overall, particulariy for crimes where people have lost property, dignity, life, etc, I'm all for it, which is what I said in my vote.

 

I feel that fines are ok as a punishment for crimes that are not severe enough to warrent a prison sentence but I would limit that to no more than $500 or so. I would add the disclaimer to this that I strongly object to the practice of setting quotas for the number of fines that must be given out.

In response to LKD's comment about where people have suffered, I would point out that the large fines currently go straight into the government coffers and NOT to reimburse anyone for damages suffered. At present, that is the role of the civil lawsuit.

If you want to have a government fine imposed specifically to pay for the cost of repairs to public property I would have no problem with that. I would also not object to fines being used to pay for damages to the people affected provided that this would replace civil lawsuits. However, I find the current system of using fines of arbitrary amounts that do nothing but help pad out the governments' budget to be truly offensive.

 

Depends, I would usually say either fines OR jail. And skyhigh fines can actually be quite adequate. When you have fixed sums and a rich criminal he'll suffer much less than a poor one.
In germany this is solved by a system of "Tagessätze". That means simplified, you take the sum a person earns a year and convert that into daily sums, and according to the severity of the deed you add up - after 90 "Tagessätze" you're considered an ex-convict.

This system is flexible and used as an alternative to jail - and it hurts. Jan Ulrich, the german bicycle talent, was caught drunk at the wheel and sentenced to an amount of something like iirc 250.000 €, that were 60 "Tagessätze" - you can estimate what he might earn a year.
The only problem with this approach is that it might generate the impression of a two-class justice. Jail for the havenots and fines for the rich. So it has to be used carefully.

Sentencing people to both jail and fines is nonsense, and I'm pretty sure that the US lawmakwers have recognised that. It would be plain idiotic to sentence a havenot murderer to 100 years in prison PLUS 5.000.000 penalty, not mentioning the compensation claims of the relatives of his victims dealt with separately ... the US compensation sums are a very special issue anyway.

 

I agree with that what's already written.

IMo, it's either prison OR fine. But not both.

And people harmed through the crime can get compensation through civil-law. As it's supposed to be.

But I am in favour of victim-help-laws. That is laws which enable the judge of a criminal court (???) to order payments to the victim (and not the state). Which would not exlcude an additional civil court judgment.

What I personally do not like is the idea, that additional fines are spoken for people who go to prison, while the fines have no punitive intention at all, but only serve as additional finance source for the state. So that the state in the end is even dependend on that additonal income, to balance his accounts.

 

...Which makes the government guilty of extortion, at least in my eyes. More like plain mugging in terms of subtlety, though. Don't be outraged by my words - they abuse the situation in which the convicts are: who will defend them? And if they targetted, let's say, great business with additional taxes? So it's not justice being served, it's money being extracted. This way, it's also money to which the government doesn't in fact have any right. Figure the rest.

However, it would be quite good to make fines from convicts go to judicial system, police etc - but still with moderation. Even criminals shouldn't have to finance the brawls of the government.

Cases like of the woman from Ragusa's topic - just think: how is that retired teacher going to get $1M before she dies?

 

I have to amend my earlier post, in a case where through either deliberate action or gross negligence another human being is horribly injured or killed, I don't think there are penalties big enough -- even death is far too good for some of these animals. So I don't care where the money goes, government coffers or to the victims (though to the victims would make more sense) as long as the perpetrator is made to suffer as much as possible for his heinous crimes.

For going to Iraq because you have principles at odds with those of the government, well, that's a stupid reason to get any punishment, let alone jail OR a fine.