Proportionate penalties arise in civil suits, don't they?

Proportionality in fining individuals is worth considering.

It's already being done in Europe. For example. Anyway, the answer is of course they should. If the only penalty for a particular infraction is a fine, and the fine is not proportional to income then it's no deterrent for those with sufficiently large incomes.

The only question for me would be how does one set such a penalty for those who have no income? (such as myself)

Meow!

GREG

Hard labor in a quarry seems reasonable to me, Greg.

Being the godless communist that I am, I can see the merit in having a fine proportionate to one's income.

However, I can see the argument (without agreeing with it) that all individuals should be equal before the law in their punishment. Then again, the lofty ideal of equality-before-the-law has never been fully achieved, and, to make matters more complicated, their are two perceptions of achieving it:

The Proportional Method: Since nobody can truly be economically equal, the law should operate proportionally to income. The law should acknowledge the wealth gap between agents, and should compensate for the sake of egalitarianism.

The "Justice is Blind" Method: In theory, this mode of justice should completely ignore everything but the facts pertaining to the case: the agent(s) and the action(s). Wealth and privilege should be ignored, because that is the only way legal equality to be achieved.

There's quite a bit of dialectical tension between the two. I for one can see these schools of thoughts permeating American politics and culture. The question is, which one is more in line with that good ol' fashioned sense of Liberal Egalitarianism.

@Mayor of Simpleton It should be proportional to wealth and not income then. Just for you. I think I'll take one of your cats. You know. Hit them where it really hurts. >:)

Indeed... I am the very rare exception.

I do know that in Austria the penalties for speeding (as an example) are at near dumping prices (also, such things are not reported to insurance companies like in the USA, so no raise in insurance premiums either), as well as it taking an act of extreme horror for anyone to actually lose their license (that they get one at a heavy cost, but never ever need to renew or be re-evaluated if they can still drive safely within the law); thus we lead Europe in the category of 'most aggressive drivers'. (Cars replaced god a long time ago in Austria as the deity of choice.)

Considering the disproportion of wealth to cost of penalty (consequences), I suppose one might find a correlation between if a crime costs little no one will really pay much heed to following the rules. :-$

Indeed I am wealthy... in terms of time. I suppose taking that would make more sense than my cats. If you try to take them, they will probably hit you where it hurts. Remember they have claws and teeth and are in really good shape. >:)

Meow! (emphasis upon the OW!)

GREG

Driving is a lot different out west than back east. Everyone speeds, and many speed excessively. You really only have to worry about real cops on the weekends, otherwise you might get hit with photo radar if you do it on a residential street, or near a school, which doesn't demerit your licence. Cars don't legally require safety inspections, it just helps with insurance prices, and things like that.

Mostly though, people are just really aggressive speeding drivers. A few weeks ago as well, I heard on the radio that someone was going around throwing rocks at photo radar vehicles, and wasn't getting caught, lol. I myself have two speeding tickets, unpaid. Mainly because you have to pay them at government agencies that close at like five in the afternoon, and I just don't have time for that. Now that they're past due, I have to pay them at a court house, which I will do when work ends. Five more houses as it stands.

Yes, I should definitely have to pay less for fines than some rich bastard. Did a house for one guy awhile ago that had a "wall of shame" in his garage with over ten thousand dollars worth of speeding tickets pinned to it, that guy ought to pay more than me.

Wow. I didn't know this this was already a policy in some countries. This is just another, in a long list of reasons, why Europe is superior.

In civil suits, punitive damages are considered by the jury after being told of the wealth of the party being punished. The Supreme Court has held that punitive damages must also bear some correlation to actual damages, with a proportion of greater than 10:1 being suspect. That is, if I cause actual damages of $100, you can't then penalize me $1m. So, yes, the general wealth of the party can be considered, but there are limitations on what is considered constitutionally permissible.

This is not a simple concept, though. Consider the windfall to the injured party when he has the fortune of being injured by a rich guy and not a poor guy. Consider also the fact that those with money are typically insured, meaning they will be covered for their loss. Punish away, but the rich have a whipping boy that will accept their punishment for them.

In the criminal context, fines are usually limited by statute within a range. As a general matter, the wealth of the party is an irrelevant consideration by the court, as justice is supposed to be blind to such matters.

Why is that? Consider the other side of the coin. Should I imprison a rich person for one day considering he would lose a considerable amount of money and reputation, but I should imprison a homeless person for a month for the same crime because his loss of freedom would be of minimal consequence to him? That is to say, if we look upon wealth with a blind eye, then neither the rich nor the poor will receive extra benefit or punishment based upon their status. The rich are not, despite the prevalent view here, inherently bad.

I don't think the prevalent view here is that the rich are inherently bad. The question was specifically about fines. I don't see anyone here suggesting the rich should do more prison time for an equivalent crime, for example. But it seems quite obvious that we need a deterrent when it comes to issues such as traffic violations, and a flat fine alone can not be an across-the-board deterrent without being too punitive on the less well off. The other way to do it is too impose penalties that do sting equally like penalty points on licences and so on. Anyway, let's not lose focus on the fairly specific nature of the OP.

All people cross culturally should receive increased fines as the current value is not enough of a deterrent.

It's obvious that the argument that I made above is bad, it treats peoples attitudes as if they are the same in all cultures, it isn't backed up by any empirical evidence and it's claiming to fix a problem without any indication that the problem exists.

The rich are not, despite the prevalent view here, inherently bad. — Hanover

I agree there often are anti-rich undertones in these types of discussions.

I want to re-frame the question away from fines being meant to sting. This approach mostly comes into play after people have received a fine, but the point of the cameras/cops is stop the behaviors that result in the issuing of fines in the first place. Ideally I wouldn't even say fines are meant to deter, their final goal (besides the revenue, lots and lots of revenue) is to create safer roads, deterring specific behaviors may or may not achieve this.
If we do concentrate on deterrence, is there research to indicate that the wealthy are not being deterred? Any evidence that shows that cross culturally the wealthy are more likely to breach the road rules and that the major factor is the comparatively low sting of the fine? Is there actually a real problem of the unsafe driving of the wealthy that needs to be addressed?

Part of the reason why the argument in the OP is more convincing than the argument at the top of my post it because it can give us a sense of indignation. The fines hurt me so it seems unfair that there are others who don't feel that same sting.

Wealthy persons will remain inherently bad in my view, until I become one.

You make an excellent point. I also seen people get tickets they had difficulty paying before. I think ticket price in reguard to income should be taken into consideration.

Loretta Lynch and Eric Holder, and James Comey, come to mind when they let HSBC Bank off the hook in 2013 with a fine estimated to cost HSBC bank 5 weeks profit. They were fined for laundering money for Islamic Terrorist organizations and for laundering money for Mexican drug cartels.

This profiteering extinguished hundreds of thousands of innocent lives and brought whole countries to their knees.