Day-Fines: Should the Rich Pay More?

Abstract

Fines are an efficient method of sanctioning since the burden on the taxpayer for enforcing it is low and the offender is transferring wealth to society. However, using law-and-economics analysis, this paper suggests that the day-fine is a superior model to other forms of fines. This pecuniary measure takes into account the income of the offender and the severity of the offense. Consequently, criminals with different socioeconomic status committing the same crime would pay the same portion of their wealth but not the same absolute amount of money. Using this structure, the day-fine has a potential to deter equally both the rich and the poor and to avoid the costly sanction of imprisonment.

Monetary Sanctions: Legal Financial Obligations in US Systems of Justice

“…The use of fines in other countries takes an entirely different approach. First, day fines are often used as a complete substitution for incarceration or supervision (as opposed to supplementing them) and are often the default sanction (Kantorowicz-Reznichenko 2015). Second, day fines are calculated based on both an offender's financial situation (typically by calculating a percentage of income) and the severity of the offense (e.g., Hillsman & Mahoney 1988, Greene 1988.…”

“…Because taking into account the burden on the offender is explicitly part of their rationale, day fines are a superior method for maintaining equality before the law (for a full discussion, see Kantorowicz-Reznichenko 2015). Indeed, the example of Germany (the country with the most extensive day-fine system) indicates that day fines seem to be impervious to demographic changes, which is often a precursor to harsher crime policy (Frase 2001).…”

“…We focus on monetary sanctions in the United States, although the use of these sanctions, especially fines, is widespread internationally (Frase 2001;Kantorowicz-Reznichenko 2015;O'Malley 2009a,b).…”

“The Plurality of Perspectives on Monetary Sanctions”: An Introductory Essay

“…In more than 30 European and Latin American countries, monetary sanctions take the form of “day fines” to address this concern at the sentencing stage (Zedlewski 2010). Day fines are calculated based both on an offender’s financial situation (typically by calculating a percentage of income) and on the severity of the offense 7 (Greene 1988; Hillsman and Mahoney 1988; Kantorowicz-Reznichenko 2015; Tonry and Lynch 1996; Vera Institute of Justice and United States of America 1995). The United States has experimented with day fines since the 1990s, with mixed degrees of success and no permanent widespread adoption (e.g., Mahoney 1995; Turner and Greene 1999; Turner and Petersilia 1996).…”

Day fines: asymmetric information and the secondary enforcement system

“…The topic of day-fines is under-researched in the law and economics literature. To the best of our knowledge, there is only one relevant article that models wealth-dependent fines (Bar Niv and Safra 2002), and another article that analyzes the advantages of day-fines as compared to other models of fine (Kantorowicz-Reznichenko 2015). Therefore, the current article is the first to address the asymmetric information problem arising in the context of day-fines, to formally analyze 1 3…”