Showerthoughts @lemmy.world Lupo @lemmy.world 3 wk. ago

Punishment for financial crimes should be proportionate to the average yearly income.

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.

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

86 comments

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 ~~other~~ Scandinavian 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
- I'd like to point out that Finland is not Scandinavian, because they'd want me to
  
  Finne, Fennoscandia then.
  
  But it should be, since the mountain range that gives Scandinavia its name does stretch into Finland
  
  Thank you, I knew this but forgot it when I was posting.
  
  Yeah. Because the 'mercans are going to know which part of the country of Europian, Scandinavian is.
- 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?
Revenue, not income. Income and profits are too easy to hide.
- Good point.
It should be proportional to the personal income of whoever committed the crime
- Net worth, not income.
  
  All net worth including stocks, property, etc.
  
  Oh no. My collection or rare mighty beans.
  
  Farmers getting a hard time on this policy
  
  Those sweet, sweet unrealised gains
- And if a company is the perpetrator, it might just have to go out of business or be acquired by the government.
- 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.
- Permanently Deleted
  
  That's inversely proportional
  
  I have no idea how you managed to get that entirely backwards.
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
So if I have a net loss for the year, I’ll get paid to commit crimes?
- I like the way you think, you would do well in the Australian property ~~racket~~ market
- Perhaps there could be a mandatory minimum fine?
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.
Is the embezzler a $7.25 or otherwise minimum wage worker or a well-paid nepo baby?
- He's a tipped employee.
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.
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.
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.
- Just seems like the poor get punished, while the rich don't.
  
  Well,technically you're wrong.
  
  Punishment is simply the flip on reward. You could say they get "negative punishment" but no one wouldn't mistranslate that shit.
  
  They are simply rewarded is probably better, or shall I say, more accurate...
- FYI, the median personal income for a person working full time, year round is just above $60,000 in the US, so 1 million dollars of crime might only deserve 16 years, 8 months.
  
  JPMorgan Chase has paid out $30,000,000,000 in fines over the last 20 years or so. That means if you apply similar logic to companies, their executive team owes up to 500,000 years in prison collectively, which is only 3,000 years per member of the senior leadership team.
  
  Source on median income pls?
  
  US Census seems to put it at ~42k/year
- If you want people to see this comment, I'd recommend updating your post's body with such types of clarifying information instead of adding the information as a comment. This comment of yours was buried down towards the end of the comment section for me.
plus televised caning.
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.
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.
  
  If I donate that percent to charity will that be fine?
- Yes
- There could theoretically be a mandatory minimum fine.
- Well that would be income.
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
  
  Thank you for the clarification 😊.
I think it should be proportional to the lives affected. You embezzeled 100000 people you will spend 100000 years in jail. White collar crimes deserve harsher punishment than blue collar crimes.
Fueling the for-profit incarceration/slavery industry even more?
- How so?
  
  Years in jail. A fine in proportion to their wealth is better imo.
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.
- Ok, rich boi bootlicker.
  
  Unsure if this is sarcasm or not. But in any case it's not a counter-argument.
- 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.
- 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.
- I see many down-votes. I assume these are the positions people are having (please correct me if I'm wrong or mischaracterizing):
  
  JubilantJaguar: There is no evidence for harsher punishments having an effect any more than moderate punishments. I even go as far as saying that punishment at all is not beneficial.
  
  Comments critical of JubilantJaguar: How can you say that punishment doesn't work when rich criminals basically can go home for free after committing their crimes? How can you say that punishment doesn't work when domestic abuse used to be widespread?
  
  While looking for the middle ground or a compromise can be seen as absurd, the evidence seems to support parts of both of these stances. For example, moderate punishment has been shown to reduce crime much more than harsh crime.
  
  A simple example is how many countries around the world no longer execute people in public as a form of punishment. For the vast majority of those countries, violent crime has been reduced drastically. In the light of these two facts (less executions and less violent crime), is it really tenable to argue that "harsher punishments result in less crime"? So, what is actually causing crime to be deterred?
  
  Some people have thought long and hard about this problem, and we now have the evidence to understand what drives crime down. Here's one such person and their summary of their findings: "An effective rule of law, based on legitimate law enforcement, victim protection, swift and fair adjudication, moderate punishment, and humane prisons is critical to sustainable reductions in lethal violence" (https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Homicide-Dispatch_1_EN.pdf)
  
  I know lethal violence is different to non-violent crime, such as wage theft. However, imagine a CEO making the decision to steal wages. Where is he located? Who, if anyone, surrounds him? What is his demeanor? Now imagine a society with "an effective rule of law, based on legitimate law enforcement, victim protection, swift and fair adjudication, moderate punishment, and humane prisons". What kinds of institutions would this society have? How would you feel walking in the streets or laboring in this society? Now, think about the CEO and the society at the same time. Are those two compatible? Would that criminal CEO really go home free in a society with those characteristics?
  
  I assume there is an impulse to say that capitalism leads to classes of people who are treated fundamentally differently. Indeed, there is clear evidence that capitalism can lead to persistent inequalities (e.g. Piketty, Shaikh), which can enable extractive political institutions. Money can buy political privileges. However, capitalism is not the only force that shapes the world. Democracy is also incredibly powerful. They are two different vectors, two different carts pulling societies around the world in different directions. Without democracy as a counterweight, we wouldn't have the kinds of protections, rights, and guarantees that so many of us have. Are we ready to deny the legacy of democracy by insisting that we cannot remotely bring justice to wealthy criminals? Are we ready to deny the democratic values that so many of us have today? Are we ready to deny the effect that collective action for democracy has had in our institutions?
  
  This seems like a fair synopsis of the debate, well done for taking the time. You summarized my position accurately enough.
  
  To be clear, I was making a very narrow point which should not really be controversial. Punishment, when understood as retribution, is an affront to human dignity and also just ineffective. It irritates me that so many people (the vast majority of us, let's be honest) seem stuck in this medieval mindset of "let's hurt the perpetrator".
  
  But punishment does have other more positive aims, such as restoration (making amends to victims) or rehabilitation (of the perpetrator). Well: the evidence is pretty clear. Places with liberal (progressive) criminal-justice systems, countries like Norway with its ultra-light-touch sentencing and "holiday camp prisons", these places have far less crime than places like the USA where most people are still stuck in their conviction that things must be made miserable for the perpetrator. Ultimately, we have to decide what we want: do we want to feel good about ourselves for having got revenge on someone who did harm, or do we actually want a fairer society with less crime, including financial crime? If it's the latter, retribution is a dead end.
  
  Back in the land of hard choices, of course wage thieves and tax evaders need to pay some kind of price for their misdeeds. Not least for the symbolic value, and for the shame (rather than suffering) that it inflicts on them. This is roughly what happened in Iceland after the financial crisis, BTW. A bunch of bankers did actually go to prison there. But the sentences were short and, IIRC, it was basically some form of house arrest. That seems to me like a decent solution.
- Beating your wife used to get you little to no punishment, and was much more commonplace.

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