Oof. yeah. Imagine a penalty of the sort "all investment assets will earn no returns for 3-5 years", or "all of defendant's assets must be withdrawn from financial instruments and converted to cash equivalents". Might actually have some bite. Some.
Though don't punishment fines work to counter that? With them being set in multiples of your average daily/yearly income so people are punished in relation to their means?
As I understand it with fines the monetary punishment is set in units equal to the income you would have lost locked up had you gotten jail time (with no income) instead. Or do fines work differently in the US? (I'm in Germany.)
I mean, beyond a certain point of wealth loosing a period of income is less painful than with less wealth, even if the total is higher, so there is no full equalizing, but still.
In general the USA doesn't have fines based on income (and if it did, I'm sure the rich would find ways to ensure their "income" was very low).
The penalty is set based on the scope of the crime committed. For example here in Massachusetts, it is $10 per mile per hour over the speed limit, plus a $50 fixed fee; going 50 in a 30mph zone will cost anyone $250, a crippling amount for the poorest and a sneeze to the richest.
We hear longingly about million dollar speeding tickets in Finland or Switzerland...
Germany doesn't do this for speeding tickets either afaik, mostly for crimes for which the judge can sentence to either jail or a fine, like theft or drug dealing. Fines that are on a lower level (like misdemeanors I think in English), are often fixed here as well.
And it gets very unfair here as well because in Germany you can get locked up for not paying such minor fines. So a lot of people end up being locked up for fare dodging on public transport for example, because they repeatedly fail to pay the fines for that. Like in my city state Hamburg over 600 people are locked up every year for repeatedly failing to buy public transport tickets. Which is a ridiculous percentage of people in jail considering that there are about 1800 places in local jails in my city. Of course they aren't locked up for a whole year but much shorter so it isn't a third of inmates but still appalling. And even if you don't care about the unfairness it also obviously costs a lot.
Jailing folks for not paying fees is a common pattern here as well; some jurisdictions do it on purpose, because prisoners are then used as a source of free labor for local government and businesses.
There is an effort to push back on this, but it's very hard to change once for-profit prison companies stock the local law enforcement and judiciary with favorable people.
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As I understand it with fines the monetary punishment is set in units equal to the income you would have lost locked up had you gotten jail time (with no income) instead. Or do fines work differently in the US? (I'm in Germany.)
I mean, beyond a certain point of wealth loosing a period of income is less painful than with less wealth, even if the total is higher, so there is no full equalizing, but still.
(BTW, just wandering in through my network...)
(no subject)
The penalty is set based on the scope of the crime committed. For example here in Massachusetts, it is $10 per mile per hour over the speed limit, plus a $50 fixed fee; going 50 in a 30mph zone will cost anyone $250, a crippling amount for the poorest and a sneeze to the richest.
We hear longingly about million dollar speeding tickets in Finland or Switzerland...
(no subject)
And it gets very unfair here as well because in Germany you can get locked up for not paying such minor fines. So a lot of people end up being locked up for fare dodging on public transport for example, because they repeatedly fail to pay the fines for that. Like in my city state Hamburg over 600 people are locked up every year for repeatedly failing to buy public transport tickets. Which is a ridiculous percentage of people in jail considering that there are about 1800 places in local jails in my city. Of course they aren't locked up for a whole year but much shorter so it isn't a third of inmates but still appalling. And even if you don't care about the unfairness it also obviously costs a lot.
(no subject)
There is an effort to push back on this, but it's very hard to change once for-profit prison companies stock the local law enforcement and judiciary with favorable people.
(no subject)