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Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

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Re: Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

#31

Post by cs02rm0 »

arethuza wrote: post #10
cs02rm0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one person gets their life savings cleared out for a $100 speeding fine, how do you equate that financial pain to Bill Gates? Why should Bill Gates be punished more in the same situation for having put the work in to build a successful company? You end up with silly (IMHO) situations like someone getting a $290k fine in Switzerland for 85mph in a 50 zone. 6 months in jail for someone who can't afford a $1k bail is…

That seems a fairly reasonable fine to me - if the speeder has "annual income of more than $820,000 and is worth well over $20 million" then why shouldn't he pay more? Also: "The Testarossa driver was initially fined a little less than $90,000 by the local jurisdiction. That was raised to $145,000 by the next court after the driver claimed diplomatic immunity, saying he is diplomat from the Republic of Guinea-Bissau.…

That seems a fairly reasonable fine to me - if the speeder has "annual income of more than $820,000 and is worth well over $20 million" then why shouldn't he pay more?

Because his income isn't anything to do with the offence.

Re: Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

#32

Post by Hnrobert42 »

titzer wrote: post #4

This is horrible. Instead of bail, they should just have steeper fines for failure to appear and yet on the flipside the same guarantees afforded to jury duty as far as employment (i.e. can't be fired for having to appear in court). That would allow poorer people to keep their jobs and still be present for court dates. Flight risk is really not as high as the system is designed for.

They should just have lower bail amounts.

Re: Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

#33

Post by cs02rm0 »

masklinn wrote: post #9
cs02rm0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one person gets their life savings cleared out for a $100 speeding fine, how do you equate that financial pain to Bill Gates? Why should Bill Gates be punished more in the same situation for having put the work in to build a successful company? You end up with silly (IMHO) situations like someone getting a $290k fine in Switzerland for 85mph in a 50 zone. 6 months in jail for someone who can't afford a $1k bail is…

> If one person gets their life savings cleared out for a $100 speeding fine, how do you equate that financial pain to Bill Gates? Why should Bill Gates be punished more in the same situation for having put the work in to build a successful company? He's not punished "more", he's punished equitably . The ultimate goal is not to collect $100, it's for the offender to not reoffend. Disposable income is an actual object…

He's not punished "more", he's punished equitably.

No he's not; you simply can't punish people equitably by financial means. License penalty points, bans, sure, but you just can't equate fines against differing incomes when not all costs and opportunities are relative to income.

I don't agree the ultimate goal is to prevent reoffending either, it's surely to prevent offending, which it failed to do in this case amongst many others.

Re: Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

#34

Post by arethuza »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #31
arethuza wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a fairly reasonable fine to me - if the speeder has "annual income of more than $820,000 and is worth well over $20 million" then why shouldn't he pay more? Also: "The Testarossa driver was initially fined a little less than $90,000 by the local jurisdiction. That was raised to $145,000 by the next court after the driver claimed diplomatic immunity, saying he is diplomat from the Republic of Guinea-Bissau.…

That seems a fairly reasonable fine to me - if the speeder has "annual income of more than $820,000 and is worth well over $20 million" then why shouldn't he pay more? Because his income isn't anything to do with the offence.

But the goal is presumably to try and persuade him not to speed again?

Re: Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

#35

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Svip wrote: post #25

Is it possible to get compensation for wrongful imprisonment in the US? I know it is in Denmark. The logic being that it shouldn't be 'free' for the state to imprison someone wrongfully. In Denmark, you seek compensation after the fact. The exact compensation will depend on several variables, so I cannot give an exact figure. But I did find a case where a man was wrongfully imprisoned for five months, and got 141,000…

It is but it is extremely rare. These are systemic problems, caused by the construction of the system itself and not due to bad actors.

One problem is to have a successful suit against wrongful imprisonment, you have to prove intent. If somebody accidentally imprisoned you acting in good faith, the idea is that people make mistakes. There is automatic protection built into the system to allow prosecutors and LE to do their jobs. If there wasn't intent but the job they did was sloppy, it becomes a very grey area because then you have to define "sloppy". Everybody's sloppy to some degree or another, so the courts have set a high bar here (IANAL, just what I've read).

The second problem is that laws and punishments are set in isolation, as if they were dealing with an ideal citizen who just broke one law. If you've got a job, a car, and savings and then you forget to pay your car insurance, a hefty fine isn't a big deal. If, however, you're poor and have to drive without insurance just to have a job and eat, then the laws were not set up with you in mind. It's not malice by one person that causes this. It's apathy among dozens of people all with different slices of the problem. It's not clear who would be the person responsible or who would have the supervisory authority over all of these people to prevent it even if the system were in place to find restitution.

Re: Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

#36

Post by cs02rm0 »

IneffablePigeon wrote: post #15
cs02rm0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one person gets their life savings cleared out for a $100 speeding fine, how do you equate that financial pain to Bill Gates? Why should Bill Gates be punished more in the same situation for having put the work in to build a successful company? You end up with silly (IMHO) situations like someone getting a $290k fine in Switzerland for 85mph in a 50 zone. 6 months in jail for someone who can't afford a $1k bail is…

The whole point of those Switzerland-style fines based on wealth are to make sure that Bill Gates is punished the _same_ amount for the same crime, not more. It's just using a different measure of "amount of punishment" - in this case something based on proportion of wealth/income rather than a flat amount. That flat amount means a lot less to Bill Gates than someone who has $100 in savings. Having to rely on chariti…

So, if a $100 fine for someone with only $100 to their name is adjusted to punish Bill Gates the same amount... how much do you fine him? Every cent he has to his name? Because if you leave him with anything the punishment isn't the same.

And what if he then commits a much more serious offence?

I still think the whole concept is so flawed it's a farce.

Re: Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

#37

Post by cs02rm0 »

arethuza wrote: post #34
cs02rm0 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a fairly reasonable fine to me - if the speeder has "annual income of more than $820,000 and is worth well over $20 million" then why shouldn't he pay more? Because his income isn't anything to do with the offence.

But the goal is presumably to try and persuade him not to speed again?

The goal should be to persuade everyone not to speed in the first place.

Re: Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

#38

Post by thechao »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #35
Svip wrote: post #25

Is it possible to get compensation for wrongful imprisonment in the US? I know it is in Denmark. The logic being that it shouldn't be 'free' for the state to imprison someone wrongfully. In Denmark, you seek compensation after the fact. The exact compensation will depend on several variables, so I cannot give an exact figure. But I did find a case where a man was wrongfully imprisoned for five months, and got 141,000…

It is but it is extremely rare. These are systemic problems, caused by the construction of the system itself and not due to bad actors. One problem is to have a successful suit against wrongful imprisonment, you have to prove intent. If somebody accidentally imprisoned you acting in good faith, the idea is that people make mistakes. There is automatic protection built into the system to allow prosecutors and LE to do…

I understand the situation as described. I do feel that many Americans (including myself) would be happier without intent: the imprisonment of a free person is a fundamental violation of constitutional rights and, regardless of intent, is a wrong, which should lead to compensation.

Re: Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

#39

Post by StreamBright »

arethuza wrote: post #30
StreamBright wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This white against minorities narrative breaks down once you understand that ~80% of minorities are DNC voters[1] and Bill Clinton was the number one guy who f*ed them over the most with the infamous Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994[2]. 1. http://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-aff... 2. In a speech at an NAACP convention in Philadelphia in July, Clinton acknowledged that toughe…

How likely are those people to vote Republican though? If there is little change of that then introducing a harsh new law might win more votes than it would lose.

I am not sure, I just wanted to point out that this white vs minorities narrative is stupid.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/05/trump-prison...

Re: Bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt or threat

#40

Post by skate22 »

squarefoot wrote: post #29
skate22 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $50 ticket is not going to deter bill gates from speeding. The goal of a speeding ticket is not to collect $50, it is to save lives by detering people from speeding..

"The goal of a speeding ticket is not to collect $50, it is to save lives by detering people from speeding.." It was once, maybe. I wonder how many people are actually turned from minor offenders into full criminals by the current law/jail system. To me it looks like the goal is to operate an artificial selection on the human species to encourage those who help the economy more. That is, legalized Eugenics.

I have gotten exactly 1 speeding ticket in my life.

It was for $200 in highschool and it stung.

If i got that same speeding ticket now, it would not sting nearly as much, and i would probably be over it by the time i went to work the next morning.

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