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But why is it more fair to punish someone more because they're poor? Matching the fine to income/wealth is the best way to ensure the impact to the recipient of the fine is similar, regardless of personal wealth. A poor repeat offender may be bankrupted after just a handful of fines. A rich repeat offdner may be able to continue doing it hundreds of times afterwards without much issue.

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“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

If you dispense the same punishment to two individuals and one is less able to withstand that punishment, are you punishing that person more? I’m not sure that the answer is a simple “yes”.

For one, this would mean if you gave someone a 50% discount on their parking fine because they were poor, but it turned out they actually only had 25% of the assets of the rich person, you are still unfairly punishing the poor person more than the rich person. It can’t be correct that an observer has to know the financial status of every citizen to judge whether their government is being fair or not.

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