Should income affect the cost of crimes?
The affirmative argument commonly being that crimes should be treated like a form of flat taxation,
so that the individual consequence is effectively equal.
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The negative argument commonly being that crimes should be treated as absolutes,
that to charge two people differently for the same crime is unjust.
Yes
Side Score: 7
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No
Side Score: 3
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A speeding fine to someone with a lot of money is nothing, thus they are more likely to flaunt traffic safety laws. Thus, in Switzerland speeding fines are proportional to income: http://road.cc/content/news/ There's a similar debate going on in the comments of this article. Side: Yes
Still not sure how i feel about this issue as a whole, but i definitely agree with what you're saying. If laws are in fact in place, to attempt to prevent crimes, a small fine to a wealthy person, is less so a penalty fee, and more so a price he has to pay to be legally allowed to speed. Side: Yes
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point
Interesting topic that I've never considered before. I'm going to have to think about this a bit. In the meantime, your description is confusing to me. You say the affirmative side would treat it like a flat tax. But wouldn't that be the opposite of what proponents of this side would want? Did you mean progressive tax? EDIT: Never mind, I got it sorted... Side: Yes
1
point
Guess I would say, at least sometimes, yes. For things like punative damages, it makes since to adjust based on means. This could be mitigated a bit by roughly using the same percentages, but I think the debate is more focused on nominal dollars (could be wrong though). Side: Yes
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The YES argument is, in many cases incapable of rendering justice. Example: A wealthy individual is charged and convicted of voluntary manslaughter for killing someone while drunk driving. They receive a sentence of 30 years in prison without the possibility of parole. A penniless individual is charged and convicted of voluntary manslaughter for killing someone while drunk driving. They receive a sentence of 30 days in prison, because they are poor. The YES argument is simply another example of the false notion that success needs to be punished. COMPLETELY INVALID Side: No
Jail time would not be affected. In fact, having equal jail time would be essential to equating the cost of crimes between individuals. If a poor person is to lose 100% of his/her wages whilst being in jail, so also would a rich person, and ergo they should be given equal jail time. Side: Yes
Except in the real world it happens the other way around. The poor person doesn't have great legal representation and gets 30 years. The rich person gets an awesome psychiatrist to claim that they have never been punished in their life so they suffer from Affluenza and shouldn't be punished. Side: Yes
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Guess I'll pose this as a rhetorical since it is tangential to the real debate - if we can't successfully tax a penniless person, should we then not tax the rich person at all? If the ideal is not practical, should we resort to the pragmatic, or to the dissolution of the country? Side: Yes
Well, this is a very interesting topic indeed, Akulakhan. I'm not sure how you came upon this topic, but it's quite appealing. At first glance I was going to say that it would create imbalance of punishment due to the amount of money one would have to pay for a crime, but then as I thought about it for awhile it seems to create an equality that give the value of the punishment equal weight in accordance to class and wealth. I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. Very mind boggling topic. Side: No
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