Seriously, even if she failed to pay 10,000 traffic tickets, how does it do any good to put her behind bars at all? They really couldn't think of a better way to deal with non-violent offense??
The good it does is deterrence to the rest of the population. Or that's how authoritarians like to see these sorts of dis-proportionate punishments.
It’s because she’s black.
White authorities in the American South (this was in Alabama) have been jailing, fining, beating, harassing, blackballing, and even lynching black people for hundreds of years.
It continues to date.
The other problem with using corporal punishment is that it's very easy to overdo it. It's also very easy to not do enough.
Case A) A poor person pays their fine, and is devastated by the loss of money.
Case B) A poor person can't pay the fine and gets sentenced to prison or gets something repoed, and is devastated by either the criminal record or loss of property.
That's the problem with these debates about penalties--for the very poor, any penalty might be life destroying. But then how do you incentivize certain kinds of behavior? And how do you determine when somebody is too poor to be subject to any kind of penalty? Any loopholes you create will always be abused by the rich and powerful because that's the very definition of power--capable of bending the system to your advantage.
The real problem is that the poor are very often unplugged from civil society as experienced by the middle classes. They don't have a stake in it. Rather than just throw up our hands, if we're serious about the plight of poverty and its ill effects, we should be more proactive. Keep the penalties, because jail time is something everybody understands, no matter how poor you are. But be proactive about not only enforcement but remediation. Send the darned judges to the people rather than making the people come to the judge. If all the person can afford is a quarter, then take the quarter and thank them for their time and their participation.
The goal afterall isn't punishment for punishment's sake, it's to heal the wounds to civil society caused by law breaking, repairing the relationship between the offender and the community, and bringing the offender back into the fold. If the offender doesn't have any sense of a personal relationship with the state, then punishment imposed from a distance can't meet even half of its function. Moreover, no penalty whatsoever, or one with no teeth, does absolutely nothing except reinforce the estrangement, which is worse. It's like leaving the mentally ill on the street to rot to death out of some absurd sense of individual liberty; it functions only to make the non-mentally ill feel more secure in their privileged circumstances, rather than addressing any of the real underlying issues.
The biggest impact, by far, is on the working people.
The rich would be somewhat miserable for a time, but that's it. After jail they can go back to their rich lifestyle.
The poor can be miserable or not, depending on exact level of "poor". Freedom is lost, but with hot meals and a roof and medical care, it's not all bad. People have been known to purposely commit minor crimes in from of the police, or to self-report by phoning from the scene of the crime, so that they could go to jail.
Working people of all levels are devastated. At the low end, failing to show up for work on time is cause for termination. At the high end, failed background checks will make the person unemployable by an entire industry or career field. Bills had been getting paid, but that ends, and the family is evicted. All belongings are likely lost; getting them moved isn't so easy while passing the days in jail. Divorce is likely. Cars will be repossessed. The person leaves jail with no belongings, no money, no family, no job, and no possibility of getting a similar job.
The working people are rightly terrified of jail. It usually keeps them in line. When it doesn't, it transitions them to being poor.
Base the fine on income. Say, a traffic ticket is 0.1% of your income, while running a red light is 1% and a DUI could be 10%.
Wouldn't it be done as "they go to jail, but still owe the money afterwards"?
This is probably true, but a car impoundment isn't a first pass at punishment. It would presumably be after someone is a severe repeat offender with no remorse. It's okay to set a maximum punishment, say car impoundment, and then judge from the fact pattern that someone deserves the max punishment. I do hope that the max punishment is less preferable than other hypothetical punishments.
> The real problem is that the poor are very often unplugged from civil society as experienced by the middle classes. They don't have a stake in it. Rather than just throw up our hands, if we're serious about the plight of poverty and its ill effects, we should be more proactive. Keep the penalties, because jail time is something everybody understands, no matter how poor you are. But be proactive about not only enforcement but remediation. Send the darned judges to the people rather than making the people come to the judge. If all the person can afford is a quarter, then take the quarter and thank them for their time and their participation.
This is a fine take, but is nearly impossible to do wholesale because there are so many entrenched interests. You're talking about a fundamental change (that I agree would be good) to the whole justice system and its goals, which isn't practical in any sense. But in this hypothetical world where the whole justice system is changed, I might agree that jail time is something that could be on the table for speeding tickets.
However, that is not going to happen anytime soon, and certainly not all at once. While we ponder how to enact a total overhaul of the justice system, let's make speeding tickets not have jail time as a punishment.
> The goal afterall isn't punishment for punishment's sake, it's to heal the wounds to civil society caused by law breaking, repairing the relationship between the offender and the community, and bringing the offender back into the fold. If the offender doesn't have any sense of a personal relationship with the state, then punishment imposed from a distance can't meet even half of its function. Moreover, no penalty whatsoever, or one with no teeth, does absolutely nothing except reinforce the estrangement, which is worse. It's like leaving the mentally ill on the street to rot to death out of some absurd sense of individual liberty; it functions only to make the non-mentally ill feel more secure in their privileged circumstances, rather than addressing any of the real underlying issues.
This is super debatable and there are many schools of thought on the goals of punishment. Some say people should be punished for punishment's sake, and indeed the way sentences are handed out in many cases reinforces that this is the prevailing view.
I'm not sure taking away the use of the vehicle is much more humane than prison for someone too poor to pay traffic tickets. Without a vehicle in the US, they likely won't be able to get to work, which all but ensures they won't be able to pay their tickets.
Same with revocation of the license, what if they drive anyway? What if they don't show up to community service? What if it's because they need to work? These punishments seem to me to need to be backed up by the threat of prison, or else they're just as toothless as the fines themselves.
Wage garnishment seems much better, though it requires that they have an identifiable employer and that they make enough to pay the fine and rent. Getting evicted because of wage garnishment, like the taking away of a vehicle, seems like somewhere near the same level of inhumane as prison time, for a person in that precarious of a situation. And what happens if the employer refuses to garnish the wages?
Though I know that some garnishments are income dependent, and employers are usually compliant, so that's probably the best of all worlds.
All of your suggestions seem more compassionate than prison, but I still think there is a major question of what happens if there is still non-compliance? Do we let violators go, or do we escalate until we are doing some violence, either through prison or confiscation of property?
And if we aren't willing to do violence, should the penalty exist at all in the first place?
That the crime on record changes names does not detract from the originating crime being a minor traffic violation.
Where i live, fines are enforced same ways like civil damages - bank account suspension, wage deductions, even forced sale of property. But no 'personal' punishment like jail or community service.
Take speeding tickets. What if a person just decides not to pay and keep speeding? Not that they can't, but they don't. Eventually you lose your licenses. You continue to speed, getting more tickets, and now also getting tickets for driving without a license. You continue to refuse to pay the fines and continue to drive without a license. You aren't driving any differently than when you received your first ticket, so there is no increase in negligence. What option do you think the courts should have to someone who acts like this? Currently there is jail time for contempt of court, but we are taking that away.
You can try to forcefully take the money, and if they are earning a paycheck hopefully the business agrees. But what if they don't, or what if the person does not earn income in a way that the state can easily seize it?
You could seize their property, take their car, etc. But at that point you are still threatening prison if they physically try to stop the police. Yes, the crime is now escalated to assaulting an officer, not just speeding, but it is all because of that speeding ticket. And if they resist with enough force, they may face lethal force in return. All for a speeding ticket.
That's how our legal system is structured. Any punishment is accompanied by a risk of a harsher punishment if it isn't followed. If you ever have a punishment that is not, then you effectively have a law that can be ignored (which we see sometimes with businesses who break laws and pay fines lower than the profit they earned from breaking the law).
No, just moving what the maximum punishment is from jail time to a boot on their tire. Conversely, who says jail time is enough? Why not make the maximum even worse than jail? At some point you have to have a max, just advocating that the max is reduced.
> Take speeding tickets. What if a person just decides not to pay and keep speeding? Not that they can't, but they don't. Eventually you lose your licenses. You continue to speed, getting more tickets, and now also getting tickets for driving without a license. You continue to refuse to pay the fines and continue to drive without a license. You aren't driving any differently than when you received your first ticket, so there is no increase in negligence. What option do you think the courts should have to someone who acts like this? Currently there is jail time for contempt of court, but we are taking that away.
How about a boot on their car? Seizure of their car for failure to have a license? Mandatory community service? That would prevent them from driving without a license, but not put them in jail. Wage garnishment is another one, they can keep speeding all they want
> You can try to forcefully take the money, and if they are earning a paycheck hopefully the business agrees.
The business doesn't have a say in wage garnishment.
> But what if they don't, or what if the person does not earn income in a way that the state can easily seize it?
Boot their car. Or seize it.
> You could seize their property, take their car, etc. But at that point you are still threatening prison if they physically try to stop the police. Yes, the crime is now escalated to assaulting an officer, not just speeding, but it is all because of that speeding ticket. And if they resist with enough force, they may face lethal force in return. All for a speeding ticket.
Assault is not malum prohibitum. Assaulting someone is evil in itself and depending on the facts of the case would mean jail time whether that assault stemmed from a ticket or not. Removing the possibility of someone going to jail altogether is not what I am advocating for.
> That's how our legal system is structured. Any punishment is accompanied by a risk of a harsher punishment if it isn't followed. If you ever have a punishment that is not, then you effectively have a law that can be ignored (which we see sometimes with businesses who break laws and pay fines lower than the profit they earned from breaking the law).
Not any. Most crimes have a maximum punishment. The maximum punishment for malum prohibitum crimes should be something less than prison.
As an aside, it's okay if there are edge cases where you have some rich person with no paycheck and 100 cars and loves to flaunt their ability to speed without repercussions because they can easily afford the ticket (or refuse to pay) or use one of their other cars.
Well the maximum penalty is a combination of death or solitary confinement, depending upon if the lethal force subdues a person enough to put them in solitary or if it kills them.
Please remember, I'm not talking about the penalty prescribed for a given specific crime but instead the penalty that follows a series of escalations where the escalations would be deemed common, and often lawful behavior, if not for the fact it is against someone acting on behalf of the court/law enforcement system.
Take being taken to jail. Outside of the legal system, someone trying to forcefully locate you into a caged environment ran like a jail would be kidnapping (and possibly enslavement) and lethal force to resist them would be a natural response. So someone being arrested can either submit to the law, in that they realize the person arresting them has the right to do so and thus allows the punishment to follow, or they can resist. In the latter case increasing force will be used to subdue them, potentially resulting in their being killed.
This is part of the philosophy that all laws are enforced by the barrel of a gun. That is speaking as a last resort in the worst case, not in the common case.
>How about a boot on their car? Seizure of their car for failure to have a license? Mandatory community service?
If they submit to these then that is that. But we are talking about the maximum penalty for someone who resists. What happens when they continue to resist? Not show up for community service? Not show up for court? Do you send police to arrest them?
>Assaulting someone is evil in itself
Not when done in defense of property (even if you don't believe in self defense, do you support police having the right to arrest a thief and use physical force if they resist). If the person respects the law's claim to their car then the escalation stops, but I'm talking worst case where they do not respect the legal structure enforcing the law.
>Most crimes have a maximum punishment.
Only if you submit to the punishment. Not submitting is accompanied by a harsher penalty.
I know this is HN, but do we really need to reinvent the concepts of punishment and deterrence from first principles? And I shouldn't even have to say it but of course the example instance at the root here is far beyond excessive.
This wasn’t a single aberrant case where maybe he made a mistake, it was an long term persistent pattern of deliberate behaviour identified in a inquiry. He even said he was ‘very remorseful’.
Yeah, but who's to say whether that something was remotely reasonable versus something completely frivolous (she rolled her eyes at him, she didn't cry convincingly enough, some other bullshit).
Anyway I'd argue that our justice system should have zero room for such capricious, emotional judging.
"What would be left to the judge's discretion exactly" - f..n work within the limits of laws and regulations. The existing framework gives judges plenty of discretion as it is.
And the last thing. Sounds like you do not mind people being jailed for the sake of the judges having discretion? I guess you would not mind then going away for a couple of years for spitting on a sidewalk or something similar.
i.e. someone who has been banned from driving due to previous offences but who is caught driving may be sentenced to a maximum of 6 months in prison.
Well, duh. She is black. That pushed the judge's buttons.
Devil's Advocate 2: Single motherhood shouldn't entitle you to ignore traffic laws. If anything, if you get more traffic violations, you are more likely unsafe for your children (who have no one else to depend on), so maybe they should be taken away (foster care being worse is a separate issue)
Those sentencing practices couldn't be further from what, for example, Germany does and Germany's roads are way safer than US roads (going by vehicle kilometers traveled).
You don't need to hand out stupidly excessive sentences like you get for pretty much anything in the US to have safe roads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
> Single motherhood shouldn't entitle you to ignore traffic laws.
So your children should be taken away if you get a parking ticket? What?
2. "foster care being worse" is exactly the issue, no? Even if I buy the "traffic tickets correlate with unsafe environment" assumption, you're suggesting we remove the kids for their own safety (or a guess at it, based on a noisy signal)...but then suggesting their actual safety is a separate issue?
What.