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.

Ie

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

    • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      10 days ago

      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.

      • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        2·
        9 days ago

        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.

        • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          9 days ago

          Ahh, yeah, I think I did misunderstand you — my bad! I didn’t realize that you were describing something like indentured servitude.

          • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafeEnglish
            1·
            8 days ago

            Only the best for Enron! I mean they only destroyed the energy economy of the west for decades and counting. Plus California already re-affirmed their support for slavery, so it’s either work as a free man at the DMV for the rest of your life or work as a prisoner printing license plates.

  • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    10 days ago

    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.

    • Lupo@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      10 days ago

      *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

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
      3·
      10 days ago

      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

      • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        9 days ago

        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.

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
    7·
    11 days ago

    Is the embezzler a $7.25 or otherwise minimum wage worker or a well-paid nepo baby?

  • xapr [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    771·
    10 days ago

    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

    • essell@lemmy.world
      24·
      11 days ago

      I’d like to point out that Finland is not Scandinavian, because they’d want me to

    • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
      5·
      10 days ago

      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.

      • xapr [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        3·
        10 days ago

        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.

  • Lupo@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    4·
    11 days ago

    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.

    • prime_number_314159@lemmy.world
      2·
      11 days ago

      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.

      • Chakravanti@monero.townEnglish
        12·
        11 days ago

        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…

    • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      10 days ago

      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.

  • reddit_sux@lemmy.world
    1·
    10 days ago

    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.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
    4·
    10 days ago

    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.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
      3·
      11 days ago

      Punishing people at all has solved many problems though. The shit they’re dealt now are discovery taxes, not punishments.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
          3·
          11 days ago

          Um… Just to be clear, you’re implying that literally all forms of punishment for any crime are unnecessary and ineffective? Because one problem that was greatly lessened by punishing perpetrators was the more transparent forms of discrimination. If you want to argue that Title VII was useless then… Uh… Good luck.

          • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
            12·
            11 days ago

            Not sure what Title VII is. I’m saying that non-restorative punishment is basically useless to everything and everyone except the party inflicting it. And it may not even be useful for them (if, for example, they were earnestly following New Testament Christian principles).

            I think we would all do well to consider this fact. Punishment in the form of retribution (which is usually what people mean by punishment) is just not effective at solving problems.

            • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
              3·
              11 days ago

              Not sure what Title VII is.

              Yeah fair enough. Change that to the civil rights act.

              I’m saying that non-restorative punishment is basically useless to everything and everyone except the party inflicting it.

              Then what’s your answer to murder? You can’t restore a human life.

              • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
                1·
                11 days ago

                Murder is not too difficult: you lock 'em up on the grounds of protecting society, since this was premeditated violence and they might do it again.

                Accidental homicide is where it gets tricky. Obviously someone who runs over a child by accident is going to jail. The usual constructive justification is that this “an expression of society’s outrage”, or similar. There’s truth in that. But the real, underlying, motive is surely to inflict suffering on the perpetrator as they inflicted it on their victim - in this case, completely unintentionally. My point is that it’s not constructive, it doesn’t solve anything except add misery to misery. And it’s hypocrisy, because we all know, deep down, that retaliation is about us, not them, but we won’t admit it. I hate hypocrisy.

                I once got badly injured in a road accident entirely caused by someone else’s gross negligence. There were no witnesses and they got off by brazenly lying about what happened. Did I hate them? Yeah, a bit. But then the lying was rational and I might well have done the same in their place. They wanted to escape punishment, which after all serves no purpose to anyone. Did I even want them to go to jail? Actually, no. I would have accepted a sincere apology and some symbolic act of making amends. A day of community service, perhaps. But our system is not set up like that. I think it’s a shame.

                • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                  1·
                  11 days ago

                  in this case planned murder is tricky. because the person they killed is directly responsible for orders of magnitude more deaths and the government was unwilling to lock them up for everyone’s safety.

    • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      10 days ago

      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.

    • NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      11 days ago

      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.

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
        25·
        11 days ago

        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.

        • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
          3·
          11 days ago

          This thread is about financial fines, not jail time, but regardless, here’s the ‘The Formula’ scene from Fight Club. This is effectively how it works in the real world. The money isn’t paid back.

    • snek_boi@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      10 days ago

      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?

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
        1·
        10 days ago

        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.

  • deadcatbounce@reddthat.com
    6·
    10 days ago

    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.