Omega18 wrote:
There is a big flaw in your argument in that at least in most states in the U.S. I am aware of, you don't simply get a fine for speeding or an unsafe lane change, but also points on you license. If you get too many points, your drivers license either gets suspended or revoked, which is an extremely serious consequence in most of the U.S. In other words, the initial consequences are not that serious, but the cumulative impact is something else. There is also the risk that if you're engaging in such unsafe driving behavior and end up having a serious accident, the consequences can be much more serious.
Washington State doesn't have a point system, and the last time I checked, I was making my argument entirely about modifying the laws in my own state, without reference to other states, but with plenty of reference to our minimum wage, etc. The constitution doesn't require the same sentence for petty theft in every single US state, and I'm not going to change Alabama.
At any rate, sooner or later a person engaging in petty theft will run out of money or time to pay fines and go to jail under the system I have just described. Yes, a rich person can get away with more, but a rich person can also pay all their driving fines until they lose their license.. And then hire a driver for themselves! So, clearly, speeding tickets and point systems don't fall equally upon people of different income levels either.
The massive flaw in your idea is it would encourage professional shoplifters to go just under given dollar amounts since they know the risk reward ratio is so favorable. This would be especially true of just under the 1,500$ mark.
In some states stealing more than a thousand dollars can be a felony as it is, so how does that mark change anything at all except to make it a bit higher before a felony kicks in? Your argument has no basis in reality.
the system already has those gradations, duh.
The size of the fines you're thinking of are actually generally higher than currently imposed at least when you get above a few dollars for the value of the item. In practice allot of thieves would at least a first take limited jail time if all they have to worry about is a misdemeanor. (It could actually be a calculation that eventually you pay to avoid jail time if you have been caught enough, but this is merely a cost of doing business which you can deal with if you're good enough at this. The whole deterrent situation becomes less effective if you know you never have to potentially worry about felony charges for what you're doing no matter how many times you get caught.)
I simply don't believe deterrent works on issues like this. Reform does, and community service is a reasonably effective reform method for petty theft. In some states, furthermore, it is already that the case that it NEVER becomes a felony for certain forms of petty theft no matter how many times you commit it. So you're, again, not even critiquing my points based on reality. Are you arguing that all crimes should have gradations where you get a more serious offence each time?
Do you have any proof that's effective? Because no study has ever shown deterrence to work.
Another practical problem is that such a system would currently leave someone who constantly steals 1$ sodas and the like to continue this behavior without the court recognizing what a public nuisance the person has become and eventually responding more strongly. A key point of actual criminal charges is they are left on your record so future courts know about them when deciding how to treat you. While driver licenses have the points system, the rest of our justice system really is not set up to deal with a fine only situation.
Uhhh, that's again simply not true, inaccurate, and not connected to reality. A driving abstract ultimately has offenses drop off with time (and if a guy steals a soda only once every five years that's worth a dollar, do the courts even need to know that, seriously? Can less than twenty bucks of theft over a human lifetime matter that much?)--but the
court record is permanent and can be unsealed by court order. It just won't show up on a driving abstract. And the same here, duh, that you're going to have this available in sealed court records for the
courts to look at. It just won't show up on
background checks so you can't be discriminated against by prospective employers and landlords.
While perhaps less of a concern for shoplifting than most other crimes, there is also a bit of a concern regarding the social justice issue and how much more serious the consequences for someone who gets caught shoplifting and is really poor. (I.E. there are actually a few rich people out there who steal for the sheer thrill of it, so there would be dramatic differences in the typical consequences if they get caught versus someone who can't afford the fine.)
Again, that argument is invalid because there's presently already no mechanism to punish rich people who can hire drivers if they lose their license from many speeding tickets and who can take their ferraris to private tracks where they can still drive them at 200mph whenever they want. In short, this entire damned post I had to answer was nothing more than a giant strawman. Thanks for wasting my time.
