I.e. 100k embezzlement gets you 2.5 years
Edit.
I meant this to be the national average income (40k if I round up for cleaner math), not based on the individuals income, it’s a static formula.
Crime$$$/nat. Avg. Income = years in jail
100k/40k = 2.5 years
1mill /40k=25 years
My thoughts were, if they want to commit more crime but lessen the risk, they just need to increase the average national income. Hell, I’d throw them a bone adjust their sentences for income inflation.
Ie
Homie gets two years (80k/40k=2), but the next year average national income jumps to 80k (because it turns out actually properly threatening these fuckers actually works, who’d’ve figured?), that homies sentence gets cut to a year he gets out on time served. Call it an incentive.
Anyways, more than anything, I’m sorry my high in the shower thought got as much attention as it did.
Good night
I think it should be all the money you made from the crime + punitive damages based on a percentage of the total amount of money you stole/defrauded.
It just needs to be completely unprofitable to break the law, in any circumstance (it doesn’t necessarily have to be a financial crime). If the fines take away less money than you make continuing to break the law, that’s just the cost of business. The punishment need to actually deter the crime by making such crimes unprofitable.
plus televised caning.
To clarify, I meant national average. As in, an average American makes 40k a year, white collar crime 1 mil, get 25 years since that’s how long it would take an average American to get 1 mil.
Fueling the for-profit incarceration/slavery industry even more?
How so?
Years in jail. A fine in proportion to their wealth is better imo.
Years in jail. […]
For clarity, are you saying that the more that people are incarcerated, the more money the private prisons and jails make?
Yes.
Make fines for companies breaking the law to make money a percentage of the profit generated from it, with a base percentage of 125%.
but that would disincentivize their activities. wow, very anti-business bro, don’t be such a pinko
exactly. not so much of a ‘free’ market when businesses cant even break the law
with a base percentage of 125%.
Given that that is greater than 100%, what would you say happens if they don’t have the resources to pay that extra 25%?
I would assume bankruptcy if you couldnt pay it off.
If someone steals a TV from Walmart they don’t get to keep the TV and pay $100 dollars in fines. It would make sense they have to pay 100% of the TV if it isn’t confiscated back, and then “damages” on top of it.
That’s the idea I got from reading what they said
I.e. 100k embezzlement gets you 2.5 years
For whom? Your post title seems to talk about having proportionate punishments:
Punishment for financial crimes should be proportionate to the average yearly income.
yet you only stated a single punishment without mention to whom it would apply, and how it would differ for someone else.
Well clearly someone who lost their job and steals toilet paper gets life in prison, as it is $8/0. Kidding, but yeah, I guess average annual income means if you are poorer, you get punished more for stealing the same object. Not sure that’s a good idea
average annual income means if you are poorer, you get punished more for stealing the same object. Not sure that’s a good idea
I’m inclined to agree.
*average national (I should have said that part) yearly income. Formula below
Financial crime / avg. Nat. Income = years in jail
I. E 100k/40k=2.5 years
1mill/40k=25 years
Hopefully that clears up the math behind my dumbass high in the shower thought
Why imprison? 100k means you work for free at chipotle until you pay it off.
Hm, garnering wages in this way (ie as if paying off a debt which matches the cost of their crime) might disproportionally affect the poor. For example, assuming no overhead, a person who makes 50k year could pay off a 100k in 2 years, whereas a person who makes 10k a year would pay it off in 10. This may actually have an effect opposite of what OP seemed to be intending — the punishment should have equal weight to everyone.
Perhaps a way to improve your idea to mitigate the mentioned issue would be to also scale the total fine to be repayed by income. Sort of like a progressive income tax.
I don’t think you read what I said: if mr white collar criminal steals $100k he works at chipotle for however long it takes to pay it off. Not at his old job. At chipotle.
If it were his old job, agreed 100
We can make this progressive by for example adjusting the employer by crime. 200k: mcd’s. 500k: Walmart. 1m+: your states dmv.
Ahh, yeah, I think I did misunderstand you — my bad! I didn’t realize that you were describing something like indentured servitude.
Instead, punishment for ALL crime should be proportional to the perpetrator’s annual income. That’s how they do it in Finland (and it seems also some
otherScandinavian countries), for instance. They have had at least a couple of instances of over $100k speeding tickets, for example. This makes incredibly SOOOO much sense that it will never happen in most capitalist countries.Some references: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine
They have had at least a couple of instances of over $100k speeding tickets, for example.
I’ve become rather favorable of the idea ticketing proportional to income/capital. It’s always bothered me that, in a system where everyone pays the same ticket price, essentially, a rich person can just eat a ticket as simply the cost of driving. I think that it should affect them at the same magnitude as anyone else. One thing that pops into my mind, however, is what happens if someone gets their ticket payed for by someone else? For example, what happens if a rich parent’s child gets a speeding ticket? The child, who may have a very low income, and, as a result, a very low ticket price comparatively, could have that ticket payed for by their parents, so the punishment wouldn’t affect them as much as someone else who was poorer.
Yes, it makes an incredible amount of sense to fine people proportionally to wealth/income. I don’t know what they do to prevent the scenario you’re describing, but would hope that they have addressed that possibility.
Whoever downvoted me must be a millionaire?
I’d like to point out that Finland is not Scandinavian, because they’d want me to
Thank you, I knew this but forgot it when I was posting.
Finne, Fennoscandia then.
I believe they’d say Nordic
But it should be, since the mountain range that gives Scandinavia its name does stretch into Finland
100k would probably get someone 8 months.
If they are higher up it would be like 4 months
I think they are saying time-served would be based on the value of the crime divided by the median income. In OPs example, median income is 50k.
I have no income… does that mean I can hold up a bank?
Whatever you get from the holdup counts as income, so your fine will just be a percentage of that.
Is the embezzler a $7.25 or otherwise minimum wage worker or a well-paid nepo baby?
Revenue, not income. Income and profits are too easy to hide.
Good point.
Trouble is that charging, let alone convicting, the establishment of financial crimes has always been all but impossible.
In the UK, Boris giving huge taxpayer’s cash to his mates for pointless never-delivered contracts. Post Office crimes against postmasters for false convictions waved away because they still control the NHS. That list is endless.
It should be proportional to the personal income of whoever committed the crime
Similar to what I mentioned here, assuming that the punishment is a fine, what happens if that person simply gets their fine payed for by someone else? They could artificially lower their income, and pay their fine through a proxy.
Punishing people harder has never in human history actually solved a problem.
Considering with many financial crimes the fine is less than the ill begotten profits, changing the fine from the current “cost of doing business” to an actual punishment is a matter of correcting a perverse incentive.
If the profits were ill-begotten then they should be paid back. Usually that’s what happens, and it’s a constructive form of justice.
But sending people to jail for years is just retribution. It’s not a deterrent. If it were, then countries that jail people a lot would have less crime, when in fact the opposite is true. If people advocating JAIL! JAIL! JAIL! were honest with themselves, they would admit that their real purpose is just to make the culprits suffer. Okay, although personally I like to think we can be better than that. In any case, it’s not gonna solve anything.
Imo, I don’t think that OP is necessarily advocating for a harsher punishment for anyone, but more that whatever punishment is enforced should be felt equally by everyone.
Punishing people at all has solved many problems though. The shit they’re dealt now are discovery taxes, not punishments.
Punishing people at all has solved many problems though
Examples please.
Um… Just to be clear, you’re implying that literally all forms of punishment for any crime are unnecessary and ineffective? Because one problem that was greatly lessened by punishing perpetrators was the more transparent forms of discrimination. If you want to argue that Title VII was useless then… Uh… Good luck.
