Fines are Just a Price Tag on Crime for the Wealthy

Fines are only a punishment if you're poor

Like flimsy police tape, fines are a paper tiger to the determined criminal with cash to burn. | Photo by Daniel von Appen on Unsplash

It’s no secret that there’s a chasm of difference between living with wealth and living in poverty.

For the poor, there are consequences to every single choice they make.

They have to toe the line to avoid accidents or mistakes that carry a cost; medical bills are expensive in the United States, and the price of necessities like food, water, and shelter are always there. Paying for one can leave you unable to afford all the rest.

Even here in Canada, while you might not need to worry about most medical bills, you can’t escape the cost of living. Surprise expenses can crop up without warning no matter where you are.

When you’ve got disposable income, you don’t need to worry about these things. You’re secure.

I’m not saying that people with higher incomes don’t have problems; of course, they do. They’re human. But the problems of the wealthy tend to come down to those of health, both mental and physical, and those of an interpersonal nature.

The poor have all of those problems too…they just can’t always afford to fix them. And that’s on top of the basic struggle to survive.

For the wealthy, the necessities are covered. Medical care is a cinch, even in a for-profit system like in the United States. It may not be able to cure everything, but you’ll get care and attention. Need therapy? No problem.

You don’t even need to worry about breaking the law. As long as the penalty is a fine, who gives a damn?

It’s just the cost of doing business.

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It’s virtually unheard of for the ultra-wealthy to experience consequences for their actions. That goes for both individuals and corporate entities.

It occasionally does happen, if the crimes are serious enough and they can’t wriggle out of it by abusing loopholes in the law. Even the rich might have a hard time getting away with murder.

But for any crime where justice is enforced with the application of fines, you might as well not even bother. Using fines as a penalty achieves nothing more than creating a price tag for misbehaviour.

This isn’t always true, of course. Around the world, various countries base the weight of fines on the income of the individual convicted of violating the law.

This helps mitigate some of the unfairness caused by blanket one-size-fits-all pricing as we see here in North America. Our lack of regard for differences in income has gotten us into quite a pickle.

If a parking ticket costs $30 for everyone, people with money can ignore the law that poorer people must obey. Who cares? It’s only $30. That’s nothing.

But for a person living in poverty, that $30 could represent a few days without food. And that’s just an example number — some tickets are much, much heftier.

In practice, this results in a ‘rules for thee but not for me’ kind of system.

Those with money view criminal actions as something they’re free to do, so long as they’re willing to pay the fee. It’s not a real consequence, and it’s not a true deterrent. Nothing is stopping them, and they can just throw money at the problem to make it go away.

When the rules of society don’t apply evenly to everyone, it creates a serious divide in how we view justice and the rule of law.

Wealth and power grant you immunity that the lower classes do not have; this is what we’re describing when we say that some countries have a two-tier justice system.

People who commit crimes do need to face justice, there’s no doubt about that. But how the law is enforced is very important.

While rich people can basically ignore the penalty for minor infractions, the poor are not so lucky. The same crime can be a mere inconvenience or a life-destroying calamity, and it depends entirely on your financial status.

What happens if you can’t afford to pay a fine? It depends on the crime and where you live, but you’ll nearly always face an escalating cascade of legal trouble on top of the initial offence.

As an example, let’s take a look at so-called ‘Poverty Tows’.

There are several parking and traffic violations that one can incur without hurting people around you. This can include simple things like having your car parked longer than allowed in a specific space, or simply failing to notice your registration is out of date.

Certainly against the law, but not necessarily harmful to the public. Each of these violations can carry a monetary penalty, most often a ticket with a fine attached.

As I discussed above, sudden fines are an expense that poor people may not be able to clear right away. Just owning and keeping a car is already expensive, so throwing more charges on top of the pile can quickly become overwhelming.

In California, the law states that your vehicle registration renewal can be withheld after one unpaid parking ticket. After five, your vehicle can be towed.

Losing your car means losing transportation. Not having a reliable means of transportation can have serious consequences. Taxi cabs cost money. Bus routes don’t always go where you need them to go.

Going to work, doctor’s appointments, getting your kids to school on time — all of these things might be dependent on you having a vehicle. Even something as simple as going to get groceries requires a car, particularly if you live in a food desert.

So, you’ll need to get it back. But if you don’t have the money, you’re out of luck.

According to the transportation committee’s 2019 report, you might be facing a total cost of over $1,100 just to get your car out of the lot. That doesn’t include the fact that your debt can keep growing based on how long the tickets have been sitting unpaid.

If you can’t get your car out of the lot, there’s a chance it might wind up going to auction. And if that doesn’t cover all the fees, you’ll probably still be on the hook for those, too.

This is just one example of the many ways you can get utterly screwed by the system just for being poor.

If you’ve got money, this is easily avoided. If you don’t, one small mistake can take years to recover from.

There are ways of creating consequences that don’t include punishing the poor more strictly than the rich.

Community service is a prime example, performing some acts to benefit society as a way of paying back your debt. We could also try basing any financial penalties on income, using the template of so-called ‘Means-Adjusted Fines’.

Regardless of what solutions we come up with, it’s clear that the current standard just isn’t fair. And while that might sound like a childish thing to say, a society that doesn’t prioritize fairness for its citizens is a society that’s doomed to fail eventually.

You can only push people so far before they snap back. You don’t want to be in the position of shouting, “Let them eat bread!” at an angry mob.

Poverty should not be criminalized, and having money shouldn’t allow you to flaunt the law. That just creates a culture of entitlement and resentment, and it doesn’t help anybody.

Consequences need to be real for everyone, and one harmless mistake shouldn’t cost you everything you have.

Solidarity wins.

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